Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Mightyzorlac on August 12, 2009, 01:31:53 PM
-
Why is the Sam Flex so expensive? come on £629 for a half a gig memory under 1Gig machine? is it 1999? When I could buy a crappy windows machine for £429 and with a monitor? Wish Amiga inc would step up and make some hardware and stop messing about with making rubbish mobile games that no one buys . 15 years ive waited.... you could get this for £429....:angry:
Processor Type Quad Intel. Core 2 Clock-Speed2.33GHz
Front Side BUS1333MHzCache4 MB
Operating-SystemWindows Vista.
Home Premium
RAM Memory4096
MB Hard Disk
Capacity 500
GBOptical
Drive 1DVD Rewriter
Graphics DescriptionIntel GMA X4500
No of USB
connections 6
PCKeyboard
Mouse
or
AMD Phenom X3 8750 Triple-Core processor
(2.40GHz, 2MB Cache)
4GB DDR2 memory
640GB SATA hard drive (7200rpm)
- 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce GT120
- Dual Layer DVD Rewriter
- 6x USB and 1x FireWire port
- DVI, VGA and HDMI video output
- 10/100 network LAN
But because i love the amiga so much I will buy one at the end of the month (sam flex) . Ive just bought an A4000 last weekend at this car boot sale , £45 what a bargain , the guy who was selling did'nt have a clue what it was or how priceless they are now days, like hens teeth in the UK , he just though it was Junk, how wrong he was!...
-
It's expensive for the same reason a Rolls Royce is expensive: They are not build in big numbers. And no, Rolls Royce is technically not more advanced then your everyday Skoda.
-
Put simply its a an industrial embedded specification motherboard with a normal industrial board price tag. With this sort of board you tend to pay more but much longer guaranteed availability of the same specification of board unlike the short time frames of availability of most consumer grade boards.
You also tend to may more for passively cooled boards with no moving parts. As you are not likely to sell the required number of board to amiga OS users along to make a board thats just for Amiga clone OS thats why you see boards like the sam440 and EFIKA being used to run amiga OS's as they can make a few larger sales to other customers to help make production cost effective.
The down side is you wont get the fastest board in the world as for most of the sort of devices these boards are target at just dont need or want a supper fast and hot board.
-
I think the question you need to ask yourself when purchassing a system bast on a board like the sam440 is dose it do what I need/want at a cost I can afford not is it the fastest system I can buy for the money.
I decided it would do what I wanted just fine and as I already own a PC desktop and laptop which I was not trying to replace but complement the CPU speed is not that important to me as long as it was as fast or faster than my old 060/PPC blizzard card which is more than 10 years old know and is likely to fail at some time (thats why I am using my more easily replaced Blizzard 040 card in my A1200 Tower these days).
-
Why is the Sam Flex so expensive?
Because it gets produced in minimal quantity. Also the board has many layers, therefor it is rather expensive to build. If you can wait a little longer, better gor for MorphOS on a Mac Mini G4. A Mac mini costs a fraction of a Sam, but has much, much more power.
If you don't like to wait, you may consider an Efika alternatively. They are still sold by several distributors and are significantly cheaper than the SAM while delivering a nice user experience, too. Of course it is no powerhorse, but with the latest MorphOS 2.3 and OWB1.4 it is even possible to surf the web *convenietly* (okay google maps still takes a while). I use it quite a lot. IMO it's worth to be considered seriously.
Edit: Just tried google maps again on my Efika with OWB1.4 - it is impressingly fast now. Not much worse than on my Atom (N270) Eee 900A with Firefox. Impressing!
-
The question is rather.. why not make AOS running on standard cheap to buy hardware?
Yeah I know, the question has been asked many times and with thousand of answers..
-
The question is rather.. why not make AOS running on standard cheap to buy hardware?
Overly simplistic answer: because then, a superior OS would be in the hands of more users
which would potentially (and probably) further popularise the Amiga again and they just
can't let that happen ;-)
-
Coz the out of court settlement btwn Hype and AINC said No !! Hmmmm.
Gertsy
-
I believe in the free market place where anyone can sell at any price they wish. That being said, in my opinion it would have been in the best interest of everyone (Acube/current SAM owners) if the cost to produce these boards would have come down after the initial return on investment was achieved, only Acube would know this. The cost of the boards initially would have been higher and expectedly so, but after a certain point to attempt to increase the customer base the price should have been dropped. Developers of both software and hardware would be attracted by the increase in users and potential customers.
Forgive my basic look at economics (basic college Macro/Micro) in regards to Acubes pricing schemes, but I believe they could pull in more buyers who are on the bubble of buying if they lowered the price on these boards, me being one of them. Also, folks outside of the Amiga family circle could be drawn in with the idea of trying something new if the price was right and the developers were on board to expand the platform.
I would like to hear from those closer to epicenter of why the pricing has stayed so rigid.
The Dawg
-
Bottom line their still to expensive if were ever going to recovery what little market is left for the Amiga , we have to be competitive with price sell many for low...was'nt that Jack Tremell's Moto back in the day...
I would happly pay £400 for one..... but not over 600 quid thats just too much..Why wont amiga INC do something ?the hardwares out there....they could be sell amiga by the bucket load, with the right advertising and sell it cheap and to the many , even the corner shop could sell them..and an alternative to windows PC's....
-
Just run Icaros on a nice powerful PC... That's what I do and it works for me :)
-
Why is the Sam Flex so expensive? come on £629 for a half a gig memory under 1Gig machine? is it 1999? When I could buy a crappy windows machine for £429 and with a monitor? Wish Amiga inc would step up and make some hardware and stop messing about with making rubbish mobile games that no one buys . 15 years ive waited.... you could get this for £429....:angry:
Processor Type Quad Intel. Core 2 Clock-Speed2.33GHz
Front Side BUS1333MHzCache4 MB
Operating-SystemWindows Vista.
Home Premium
RAM Memory4096
MB Hard Disk
Capacity 500
GBOptical
Drive 1DVD Rewriter
Graphics DescriptionIntel GMA X4500
No of USB
connections 6
PCKeyboard
Mouse
or
AMD Phenom X3 8750 Triple-Core processor
(2.40GHz, 2MB Cache)
4GB DDR2 memory
640GB SATA hard drive (7200rpm)
- 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce GT120
- Dual Layer DVD Rewriter
- 6x USB and 1x FireWire port
- DVI, VGA and HDMI video output
- 10/100 network LAN
But because i love the amiga so much I will buy one at the end of the month (sam flex) . Ive just bought an A4000 last weekend at this car boot sale , £45 what a bargain , the guy who was selling did'nt have a clue what it was or how priceless they are now days, like hens teeth in the UK , he just though it was Junk, how wrong he was!...
Did everyone miss the "A4000 for £45"??!?!?!!! God thats a good price, you luck SOB ;) hehe
What did you get with it? was the battery thingy whatsit OK?
I got an A4000, A2000, 2 x A1200s and a CDTV (all with extras) for £100 :P I had to change my pants when I got the stuff home :roflmao:
-
Did they loose money on every Efika they sold? It was so cheap!
-
...was'nt that Jack Tremell's Moto back in the day..
SAM440, definitely not for the masses!
-
SAM440, definitely not for the masses!
Hey tone007,
Is price dictating what is for the masses or the OS/Hardware offerings? Just a logic question, nothing personal just interested on your thoughts. :)
The Dawg
-
I do think they are just dreaming to get a foot hold in the market at the current prices. I know IF i had that kind of money to spend on a Amiga, I would much rather use the money to go to an A4000 tower or even an A3000 tower instead.
They are just shooting themselves in the foot at the current prices, don't worry, the SAM will be just a distant memory soon if they don't drop the prices, only a handfull will be sold, and, in the end, it will be just another failed attempt. Then everyone who was involved with it will all be standing around scatching them selves and asking "what went wrong?". The same will be said for the mini-mig, c-one etc.- All nice hardware, but all way over priced for what they are.
-
Yeah... is that so?
I bet if you tried 4.1 on a next-gen Amiga you would sell all your classic systems and get one as fast as possible.
Think about this tonight: what is better, to have those systems in your sig in the closet doing nothing, or to have AmigaOS on modern hardware on a system that is capable of work today?
-
Yeah... is that so?
I bet if you tried 4.1 on a next-gen Amiga you would sell all your classic systems and get one as fast as possible.
Think about this tonight: what is better, to have those systems in your sig in the closet doing nothing, or to have AmigaOS on modern hardware on a system that is capable of work today?
IF the Sam were a reasonable price, I would buy it in a heart beat, but (too me) a reasonable price for ANY motherboard is LESS than $200. You can get a kick butt ASUS motherboard for less than $200 USD.
BTW ALL my amigas are set up (except 2 A500's which are in the Closet, as I have no room to put them put out on my 2 benches) but thats not the point. IF they wanted wanted, REALLY WANTED to get them out and make them a better sucsess then all the past "Failed" machines, they would sell them at a reasonable price.
Simple math why sell 10 boards at $700USD when you will sell a hundred or more at $200
-
You can't really compare the ownership of classic Amiga's (whether they sit in a closet or not) to the new hardware. The price is cost prohibitive for many and a perfectly logical dissuader to anyone looking to purchase a new computer period. Yeah, at that price point, the masses are going to stay away. Of course they are. Especially when you're just talking about a barebones motherboard. MOST people want a pre-built system in this day and age. One that sets itself up upon startup for the first time. The SAM mobo and ALL of the others Pegasus/Efika, etc. are designed and built for the hobbyist used to justifying the expense of their hobbies. Always was, always will be. These companies obviously are not interested in the old Tramiel way of thinking. They want to maximise their margins for TODAY and if they cared about the community, would re-invest most of the profit into R&D and production of newer technologies to continue making money in this specific arena.
I'd LOVE a complete SAM setup w/ 4.1, etc. But it's a little too cost prohibitive for me and probably always will be at that price. And I'm not even comparing it to the price of a PeeCee either (that's silly). I think $900-$1k is a lot of money for a hobby computer - period. Halve the cost of a complete system and I'd buy one right now. And no, I would NEVER sell my A2500 to pay for a modern "Amiga" system ;-)
At least when you purchase one of these systems (A1, Pegaos, SAM) you'll get over 80-90% of your investment back when it comes time to sell. What machine (or ANY product today) can you say that about?
-
Is price dictating what is for the masses or the OS/Hardware offerings? Just a logic question, nothing personal just interested on your thoughts. :)
SAM doesn't win in either category, unfortunately.
Expensive, underpowered, unfriendly to new users, and not very likely to be able to take the place of a mainstream machine.
The only things it's got going for it are the nostalgia factor and that it's something new to play with that has a connection to an old name. If Vtech or some random vendor put out a machine with similar specs at that price, it'd get laughed at.
-
They have an OS that will run on equipment that has the power of a mobile phone and they don't let it run on desktop level equipment! Heck you can get a far more powerful Mac Mini G4 with hard drive and case for a couple hundred US dollars. This is not collectors stuff like old Amiga hardware, it's just a low spec board built this year.
-
@ Mightyzorlac
the same reason why PPC cards cost a zillion dollars and A4000's are selling for ridiculous prices on Ebay!
it's a niche market and historically if you want to play in such a market you gotta pay :-)
btw, can't wait to get a Sam of my own!
-
SAM doesn't win in either category, unfortunately.
Expensive, underpowered, unfriendly to new users, and not very likely to be able to take the place of a mainstream machine.
The only things it's got going for it are the nostalgia factor and that it's something new to play with that has a connection to an old name. If Vtech or some random vendor put out a machine with similar specs at that price, it'd get laughed at.
Agree totally, as with the other posts made by everyone. I have been wanting to support OS4.1, I just cannot afford the hardware. Maybe, when the MacMini version of OS4.1 is out.
The Dawg
-
SAM doesn't win in either category, unfortunately.
Expensive, underpowered, unfriendly to new users, and not very likely to be able to take the place of a mainstream machine.
funny tone007, that's what most of my pc loving buddies were saying about my Amiga back in the day !!! I support Hyperion, Amiga OS4.1 and Sam & I know many other Amigans do too :-)
in the end to each his own my friends..there really is no right or wrong...I love my classics but love the fact that new Amiga products are produced today :-) besides, the more users and developers that come on board, the faster Amiga OS and its software base will progress...so get a Sam & OS4.1 & have fun !!
-
Amiga stuff has always been expensive. The first 030 card I owned (and incidentally the last one), I bought a 4mb SIMM for. Called an Amiga retailer listed in the back of AmigaWorld magazine (boy that brings back the memories) and they wanted $289 for it.
Called a PC vendor here in town, out the door for $179.
Same deal with the hard drive for that same system. 60mb drive from an Amiga dealer (different one)? $149. Bought from a vendor in Computer Shopper for $99.
In this particular case it is, however, economics of scale. They produce Sam boards in bunches of what, 75 to 100? At most?
Compare that with, say, an Asus intel mobo produced in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. Volume discounts!
-
Anyone got any ideas as to how many SAM boards have been sold?
They seem to go out of stock pretty quick but that doesnt mean Dwayne Dibbly if they are only getting 2 in at a time!;)
-
Amiga stuff has always been expensive.
Not true. In germany the original A500 sold for 1000DM in 1986 (if I recall correctly). A reasonable equipped PC was no cheaper and it didn´t even have color, was slower and had no sound except for the beeps. Not to mention the OS.
A Sam is as expensive as a well equipped Mac mini. You don´t get as much for the price, that´s for sure, but you can´t say that it is impossible to buy one. Hey at least you can buy new hardware to run AmigaOS4 on it today! During the years before it was much harder to get PPC-Amigas.
Of course a cheap PC and cloanto´s "Amiga Forever" might be all the Miggy you need, but I am happy with Sam so far.
-
For me it's not how much the board costs, it's what am I able to do with the machine? Serriously, I don't really know what it can do. I use the PC for some word, excel, internet/e-mail, watching d/l videos, youtube, mp3s and playing the occasional game.
I use the Amigas for classic games that I love, although I'm thinking of getting the A4000 online somehow so I can start too use it for other things too and maybe ween myself off the PC for the most part.
Are there any commercial games out there for OS4? Any software lists available?
-
See os4depot.net and aminet for a lot of software available.
You can use Sam/OS4 for all those things you mention. Although Flash support is minimal at the moment, it is possible to watch Youtube type videos etc using a little add-on to OWB.
Using the Cygnix package, you can use AbiWord and Gnumeric for word processing and spreadsheets - should easily suit most people's needs.
Then there's stuff like Pagestream, Hollywood.
Lots of ported games available. The last "commercial" games I can think of are BOH and WordMeUp.
-
Economies of scale. They are not made in large numbers. I estimate the entire amiga worldwide population to be 10,000 at most and even that might be generous. Hence, the maker of this board (Acube) does need to make some profit too. So does the Amiga OS owner (whoever it may be now). If I started selling hardware why would I sell it if it wasn't worth my time? And no if i drop the price, I want to see 100s or 1000s of orders.
Like others have said: its a small market. If price is too hefty then go ahead and buy the crappy windows machine.
The amiga was never good on the price even with Commodore. And lets face Amiga was never about gigahertz and gigabytes like the PC. The quad core pc may still crawl with vista on it...
HERE is a question: at what price would you say SAM would be competitive??? (much more creative than whining about the current price).
-
If you like the way of the Amiga, and like to mess with the OS. If you like to run Workbench you are going to really enjoy next gen Amiga.
For myself, the question was never if I want or do not want a next gen Amiga because of price. I was sure I wanted it even if it had a premium price because looking back, I spent some serious cash on this hobby. I was prepared to pay 700 euro for the Boxxer back in the late 90'ies (and that was without a 68k CPU), and hey, if Mick Tinker sees this I am still prepared to pay serious money for a Boxxer system. If you want to belong to the 4.1 club you need to pay for that premium, you may like it or not. But that is just the way it is right now (it may change in the future, we dont know).
What you are going to do with your next gen Amiga system is 100% up to you. Nobody is going to force you to use it over your PC and nobody is going to cheer you for paying 1000 dollars for a pathetic 500 MHz machine, I guess, if you feel the desire to be at the cutting edge of Amiga technology (booth hardware/software tech) you just get it and know what to do with the system.
That cutting edge Amiga tech could have been a quadcore with 4 GB mem for 399 dollars - but it is not. If people could look back and travel back in time I am sure we would today have a 400 dollar Amiga more powerfull than we have now, or maybe -gasp- a free next gen Amiga (would you complain then?). But the situation is what it is, either you like it or not: if you are truly passionate about Amiga, 1000 dollars to experience what a modern variant of AmigaOS feels like is peanuts, and yes the differense between 4.1 and WinUAE is huge (yes even on a fast PC).
If you dont get it, fine, I can fully understand that. But please, I suspect we are all here Amigans at heart and blood so why not be a bit more open minded and positive instead of being so narrow sighted and finding flaws and faults.
This is after all an Amiga community, and Amiga is still alive (at least with life support) - Is that not great?!
So it costs 1500 dollars, so there is no reason at all to get a Sam440, so you can get a five QuadCore systems for that price, so Classic Amiga is the real deal?
Why not take ACTION and JUST DO IT?
-
The SAM board costs about £400 depending on the version and speed. The rest of the £620 is the OS4 license (about £100) and for the rest of the system's hardware: case, drives etc.
Yes, pricey compared to commodity x86 hardware produced in 10,000 batches. However, ask a retailer how much money he makes selling an x86 mobo and then how many he would have to sell to stay in business.
ACube have priced the Sam to make a small profit for the few remaining resellers as well as for themselves and to start recovering R&D costs and hopefully planning for the next stage.
Bit of a catch-22 situation - if people don't buy the current offering, it will be difficult to develop the next one.
And has been said many times, x86 is not possible: (a) there is no license until legal battles are finally sorted and (b) porting to x86 would cost money that would probably not be recouped in sales. Porting to Mac would be great for some consumers, but wouldn't help the wider eco-system, ie hardware developers and Amiga-loyal retailers.
A £600 "hobby" purchase that will last 3 years equates to less than £4 per week - that's less than 2 pints of beer per week over here in the UK. Granted, for many that won't be worthwhile. Unfortunately, that's economics.
-
Well said yoodoo.
-
Not true.
Yes true. I never said "Amigas have always cost more than PCs", I said they've always been expensive. My 512k A500 with external floppy cost well over a thousand dollars (US) in 1989.
That is, by a mid-level consumer gauge, expensive.
-
It keeps the riff raff out LOL
I own 2 SAMs and I'll buy more...
Join the Club at a price or move along...
-
But because i love the amiga so much I will buy one at the end of the month (sam flex) ...
that's the Amiga spirit !..when was the last time any one bought a peecee becuase they 'loved' it :-) LOL
-
It keeps the riff raff out LOL
I own 2 SAMs and I'll buy more...
Join the Club at a price or move along...
well said slayer!
-
The SAM board costs about £400 depending on the version and speed. The rest of the £620 is the OS4 license (about £100) and for the rest of the system's hardware: case, drives etc.
Yes, pricey compared to commodity x86 hardware produced in 10,000 batches. However, ask a retailer how much money he makes selling an x86 mobo and then how many he would have to sell to stay in business.
The price you're quoting would pay for not one, but two fully kitted out quadcore desktops. The retailer might have to sell a lot of boxes to make it worthwhile, however, and this is key: He will have customers willing to plunk down that kind of cash for that sort of hardware.
There are maybe 5000 Amiga users left worldwide.
With the greatest of respect to all involved in SAM/OS4, I would have to strongly recommend getting a PC costing half as much and getting a copy of AmigaForever, which will run far more software much more quickly.
--edit--
@cv643d, no, I think you'll find most of us on this board are or at least were Amiga users, not "Amigans". Many of those self identified "Amigans" left this board many years ago in a huff to start in another place, which in turn helped perpetrate fraud. Some of the more insane ones then set up another board and have since been viewed by almost everyone else as a cancer.
-
@cv643d, no, I think you'll find most of us on this board are or at least were Amiga users, not "Amigans". Many of those self identified "Amigans" left this board many years ago in a huff to start in another place, which in turn helped perpetrate fraud. Some of the more insane ones then set up another board and have since been viewed by almost everyone else as a cancer.
without starting a war :-) many of us here at Amiga.org still use our classic Amiga's and/or also new hardware running OS4.1 on a regular basis so that makes us all 'Amigans'.
I don't understand the 'us' vs 'they' attitude ??
-
Look the_leader
Like I've said many times the people who want to use Modern AmigaOS Hardware are not interested in what makes sense from a perspective of a person like you... You can stay in Retro Amiga Wonderland if you like, amen to you...
AmigaOS is a living evolving piece of software it doesn't have to stay in an emulator like the C64 or anything else similair...
Your advise is only worth while to other people of your designation...
Like I've also stated Amiga Forums need to rethink why they fly the Amiga Flag... it isn't to accomodate what has become of the members and there mentality and outlook etc it is supposed to be PRO Amiga, NOT PRO Stay at Amiga OS3.9...
I'll be happy if the boards wanting to fall by the way side would just call itself something else, Members aren't members for life, not on Amiga Boards or anything else for that matter, they are members as long as they are interested and true to what the Board represents...
If Amiga.org for example truely thinks the New AmigaOS is not worth following or supporting then perhaps it should change it's name to reflect this...
Amiga as far as I'm concerned is a 'current' term, not a label open to a period in time...
Why do you think everyone coined the phrase classic Amiga... there's your answer...
Of course anyone who has loyalty to this site is likely going to say, who the hell am I and I can sod off if I didn't like it... the thing is I don't mind this site at all... but that doesn't mean I don't have a point of view when it comes right down to it...
And there is no sense arguing with me when you know I'm right... If you wanted to clarify something, what would you do?
Get a Bloody SAM, it is still FAR cheaper than what I paid for Amiga stuff in 1986...
What happened to the days when someone would spend a fortune on some Amiga HW and the thread would be like, oh I'm getting that too, or damn I can't afford that, but good on you!
Now it's you Dumb Ass or You are a Zealot etc etc... All you types of people who have given into the dollar or given up on the Amiga, need to move on... You're like lost spirits that can't rest and anyone with an Opinion against this, you think about what you are arguing for? There's another self truth... you're only fighting your older self...
-
@slayer
Everyone here is as welcome and worthy, regardless of their poison. Be it classic, emulation (sw or hw), AROS, MorphOS, or even NG amiga. Heck, we even welcome OS X, Linux and Windows discussion.
And BTW: Just because someone paid a ton of money for some HW 15-20 years ago doesn't mean the same prices should apply today. Things have evolved quite a bit since then, or at least should have.
-
@slayer
You might want to re-read your own posts and then take a good long look in the mirror?
/lowers eyebrow.
-
Don't need the bestest, fastest motherboards out there, just need 3 cheap co-processors and wham!
Hardware multitasking, baby!
(We can dream, right?)
-
Then there's stuff like Pagestream, Hollywood.
Ah, Pagestream 2.2. I learned how powerful that was back in 1997; and it wasn't even new then!
To my eye, IMO, it was as good as Quark is *now*. (Though Quark has seen better days, most publishers switching to InDesign)
-
Did everyone miss the "A4000 for £45"??!?!?!!! God thats a good price, you luck SOB ;) hehe
What did you get with it? was the battery thingy whatsit OK?
I got an A4000, A2000, 2 x A1200s and a CDTV (all with extras) for £100 :P I had to change my pants when I got the stuff home :roflmao:
Thankfully its got the newer type of baterry that does'nt leak all over the board. It was in practically mint condition and came with loads of games and other software on the HD,a monitor, keyboard all working in perfect condition. Ive been in heaven since lol as Ive been looking for one of these for years, so lucky the old guy had no clue as it belonged to his son who died last in Iraq and he was having a good clean out of his stuff..
-
HERE is a question: at what price would you say SAM would be competitive??? (much more creative than whining about the current price).
A price tag not exceeding EUR 200 for the flex-board would be adequate. The Sam is not that much more powerful than Efika is - and that went for US$ 99. For EUR 200 I'd consider Sam to be a cool device. I spent less for my Eee, Mac Mini and Efika together than for a Sam System alone.
-
Thankfully its got the newer type of baterry that does'nt leak all over the board. It was in practically mint condition and came with loads of games and other software on the HD,a monitor, keyboard all working in perfect condition. Ive been in heaven since lol as Ive been looking for one of these for years, so lucky the old guy had no clue as it belonged to his son who died last in Iraq and he was having a good clean out of his stuff..
:( I feel sorry for the fella losing his son over there, poor guy.
Anyway :) It sounds like you got the uber rare A4000CR?? They came with the coin battery as standard. Did you get an accelerator of any sort too?
Good deal anyway ;) I started going back to car boot sales last November and I always secretly hoped Id pick up a bargain Amiga, LOL! The funny thing is, I never saw one for months and months then I see a guy selling an A600 with a shed load of games and all he wants is TEN quid! I ripped his arm off,lol! Ironically, I go months without ever seeing one then see 2 at the same boot sale! LOL the other was an A500 with nothing else and he wanted £15, just the base unit so I didnt do too badly.
-
Why is the Sam Flex so expensive?
Economy of scale is part of the equation. Low production numbers means higher per unit costs. Alliances with other companies could perhaps have helped here (like Genesi for instance is doing). But that's only a part of the equation. The Sam is an overly complex design, and this will set the lowest possible per unit cost quite high, no matter the volume. It has many layers and external controllers, especially the notorious FPGA chip that no-one (not even Acube themselves) has come up with a use for, not even after all this time. It just sits there like some appendix, costing money and adding to the complexity. To summarize why the Sam is so expensive, everything boils down to the Acube management, and the decisions they made.
-
Did they loose money on every Efika they sold?
Of course not!
It was so cheap!
They still are (you can still buy them brand new):
Directron (http://search.directron.us/newsearch.php?find=efika) in USA
Vesalia (http://www.vesalia.de/r0e_efika.htm) in Europe
AusPPC (http://ausppc.blogspot.com/) in Australia (he does wonderful work with casings)
(I also remember being surprised some time ago by seeing someone talking about another dealer (none Amiga related) that sold Efikas, but I can't remember their name)
So they are still available! :-)
-
I spent less for my Eee, Mac Mini and Efika together than for a Sam System alone.
That says it all...
-
They still are (you can still buy them brand new):
Directron (http://search.directron.us/newsearch.php?find=efika) in USA
$99? Now there's a price that'll sell some operating systems.
edit: and the OS is free? Now there's a bargain.
-
It's expensive for the same reason a Rolls Royce is expensive: They are not build in big numbers. And no, Rolls Royce is technically not more advanced then your everyday Skoda.
You should watch Top Gear more often ;)
-
$99? Now there's a price that'll sell some operating systems.
edit: and the OS is free? Now there's a bargain.
AROS' EFIKA port is free.
-
$99? Now there's a price that'll sell some operating systems.
edit: and the OS is free? Now there's a bargain.
There are free OSes for the Efika, but if you meant MorphOS. No, that is not included. The trial version is free though and has no restrictions except that it will reduce speed half an hour after each boot up to a minimum. If MorphOS meets your taste and you want the unrestricted version, the registration fee is 150 EUR (I was lucky paying only 111 EUR during the 1st two weeks after release).
-
Sneaky. Is morphos-team.net the official website? They have a download link, but they don't mention anywhere on the site that I've seen that it's a trial version or a price for the software, nor do I see a purchase link.
-
Sneaky. Is morphos-team.net the official website? They have a download link, but they don't mention anywhere on the site that I've seen that it's a trial version or a price for the software, nor do I see a purchase link.
Tried the Frequently Asked Questions (http://www.morphos-team.net/faq.html)?
-
Kind of a silly place for such universally needed information, but there it is.
-
nor do I see a purchase link.
You purchase MorphOS from within MorphOS (when online), not through a link on a website. You then receive a keyfile that is tied to that particular hardware from where you purchased it.
-
The plot thickens!
Unfortunately the OS costing more than the hardware I'd run it on kind of kills the fun for me. Guess I'll stick with the old stuff.
-
Indeed MorphOS license is a bit expensive for a low end computer like the Efika. Anyway, I don't regret to have bought a license though, but I am kind of addicted anyway ;-)
A viable solution to get a taste of it while spending as less as possible may be this: Get an Efika for 99, add the other necessary parts from #? (dumpster/attic/ebay) you end up at about 99 -250 total cost for the hardware. Then toy around with the MorphOS Demo, with Aros, with Linux and see what the Efika can and cannot do. If you feel you actually like MorphOS, but don't want to register for the Efika, you will soon have the chance to run it on a way more powerful Mac Mini (I expect 5 - 10 times the speed). After trying out on the Efika you will know if a Mini w/ MorphOS is worthwile for you or not.
99-250 for toying around - it's worth a thought. If you feel you don't like it at all, you can sell it off again with an expected loss of no more than 50.
-
I never said "Amigas have always cost more than PCs", I said they've always been expensive. My 512k A500 with external floppy cost well over a thousand dollars (US) in 1989.
Well they were cheaper here (equiv. 600$ US in 1989 (no 2nd floppy) IIRC), but then maybe the avg. income was less here. New computers in general have been expensive until 2005, I´d say.
-
The Sam is not that much more powerful than Efika is
Nonsense - look, you cannot just look at the CPU alone to quantify "power". To me the efika is and always was useless, and it was never the CPU that was the problem. Too little RAM, borken IDE, dead slow USB and only one PCI slot (which can only be used for gfx card if you want to run MorphOS) - that's what kept me away. The SAM flex board fixes all that, at reasonable price - compared to anything else, the efika is still way overpriced with what little it offers.
I would say the SAM is perfectly priced, high enough to keep many people from buying it, so that the production can be kept in managably low numbers. If the price was lower, they would not be able to keep up with the demand, this is already a problem enough as it is. Also, more sold units means more annoying users etc. it makes perfect sense to grow the production and evolve the products slowly for a company like acube.
Anyways, if we want to stay on PowerPC, SoC is probably the only affordable way forward, the days of "pure" PowerPC CPUs are very much over.... I'll go as far as to say we're _lucky_ that we have PowerPC systems available at all, it's not something that's obvious to keep alive.
-
Market forces
-
Amigas in the late '80s, early '90s were state of the art, big buck for current technology is fine. But let's face it Sam would barely make state of the art 10 years ago...
Well they were cheaper here (equiv. 600$ US in 1989 (no 2nd floppy) IIRC), but then maybe the avg. income was less here. New computers in general have been expensive until 2005, I´d say.
-
I would say the SAM is perfectly priced, high enough to keep many people from buying it,
Now that is a startling comment for someone who supposedly wants AmigaOS to succeed!
Out here in the real world,businesses dream of selling MILLIONS of widgets ,TVs,and yes,even computers!
-
I would say the SAM is perfectly priced, high enough to keep many people from buying it, so that the production can be kept in managably low numbers. .
so thats where successful businesses have been going wrong-they've been selling too much.
-
so thats where successful businesses have been going wrong-they've been selling too much.
:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:
-
Thinking about it, SAMs aren't actually expensive... I saw on another forum someone moaning about the cost of Macs and iPhones... And I thought, as long as people are prepared to pay the price, the product isn't expensive...
-
It's been said that nothing is expensive if you can afford it.
However, it doesn't change the fact that in terms of value for money, especially in comparison to the rest of the consumer computing world, it does seem to offer quite a lot less then the competition.
On that basis I do consider it expensive given the actual product's capabilities.
-
It's been said that nothing is expensive if you can afford it.
However, it doesn't change the fact that in terms of value for money, especially in comparison to the rest of the consumer computing world, it does seem to offer quite a lot less then the competition.
On that basis I do consider it expensive given the actual product's capabilities.
Yeah, I agree... If it were £50 and came with an OS... Then I think it would be worth a look...
But my point is, as long as there are people prepared to spend that sort of money on that board... Acube would be stupid to sell it for less...
-
Acube would be stupid to sell it for less...
Unless of course they could make up for the lower profit per unit by selling greater quantity.
-
Yeah, I agree... If it were £50 and came with an OS... Then I think it would be worth a look...
But my point is, as long as there are people prepared to spend that sort of money on that board... Acube would be stupid to sell it for less...
Yes and no.
Whilst selling at a high price will still garner some sales, reducing the price will sell a lot more as more people begin to perceive it as being value for money. The cost of manufacture goes down as batch sizes increase and so on and so on.
Short term they'll make a bit of cash. Long term there won't be nearly enough return on their product to justify a followup. They have to reduce not only the cost to the consumer, but also the costs involved in manufacture by buying in larger quantities if they hope to make a dent.
Selling more units also makes the customer base more attractive to potential developers. Who in their right mind would sit down and write a complex program when your customer base consists of around 600 or so remaining A1's, and maybe half as many Sams?
--edit--
Damn you tone007! :p
-
Acube aren't stupid, they have quite an expensive board on their hands... And they know they can shift it to a set market, for a price that gives them a healthy profit. I don't think Acube could afford to sell that board for a price that would attract peope like you and me... So they don't.
-
Acube aren't stupid, they have quite an expensive board on their hands... And they know they can shift it to a set market, for a price that gives them a healthy profit. I don't think Acube could afford to sell that board for a price that would attract peope like you and me... So they don't.
Actually I'd say more short sighted then anything else.
By getting bigger batches they reduce unit cost, some of that reduction then goes to the customer base. Which, due to the reduced cost will be larger (for instance more people willing to blow £200 then £600). Whilst their profit per unit overall will be reduced, this will be made up for and then some by the increased volume.
Which again brings us back to the devs, without whom the Amiga market (such as it is) is completely unsustainable.
Yes, they can sell it at £600, but to how many people? If there are a thousand Sams put into the wild before the production ceases I would be surprised. Not many people are going to be willing to spend their time/money on developing software for 1500 (tops) users.
-
The thing is that there isn't an Amiga Market anymore, it's dead and gone. Acube are selling a product that will never be comercially viable from a developer point of view. Due to piracy alone, one needs to be sure that you can pay the bills even if only 10% of all users of your software actually pay for it... In the Amiga world 10% of all users is only about 10 to 50 people... That's not going to pay the rent [:(]
-
I'm glad someone did this so I didn't have to.
(http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/11/16/128713230666748991.jpg)
-
I'm glad someone did this so I didn't have to.
(http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/11/16/128713230666748991.jpg)
This guy's got Amiga written all over him.
-
Nonsense - look, you cannot just look at the CPU alone to quantify "power".
Of course you can, if your applications needs power, you will only get that from the CPU alone. For example, any G3 CPU will be better than the Sam/Efika class "G2" CPU's with no L2 cache, especially when running older, 68k emulated Amiga applications.
To me the efika is and always was useless
Well, the Efika isn't for anyone, *it is* rather limited in its specifications. But OTOH this is also its strength, the low price is perhaps its most prominent specification. And it was only supposed to be an evaluation/development platform for the next step in the plan, the 5121b based LimePC/"Cherrypal" devices (that unfortunately never happened).
But what do we see if we look at the Sam? We see a motherboard that costs about as much as a PowerStation (another relatively low volume machine, one can suppose), with *four* G5 cores, 4MB L2 cache, 4 Altivec units, 8 FPU units, etc, etc. This is powerful hardware. The Sam costs about as much, but is outperformed by *PDA's*! I'm sorry, but this is as useless than an old Trabant sold at the price tag of a Ferrari; only the few die hard Trabant brand followers will even consider it, effectively making this a *none option* as a future platform. It's not an option. It's utterly useless from a future-building perspective.
-
Of course you can, if your applications needs power, you will only get that from the CPU alone.
First... what application would that be?!
Secondly - I assume your answer to the above is "media playback", but what's the point of a fast CPU when the IO is so crap you cant feed the CPU fast enough, and the ammount of RAM is so low that there's harly anything left to use for buffering?
For example, any G3 CPU will be better than the Sam/Efika class "G2" CPU's with no L2 cache, especially when running older, 68k emulated Amiga applications.
Did I say otherwise? Sheesh, you're jumping to a completely different discussion here - my comment was on how _efika_ and _sam440_ compare - NOT anything else.
Well, the Efika isn't for anyone, *it is* rather limited in its specifications.
No shit!
But OTOH this is also its strength, the low price is perhaps its most prominent specification.
No it isnt, the Efika with all its glorious specs is _overprised_ - I never bought one, exactly because it's just way too crappy, even for the pricetag it has. I have ARM systems that I consider much more worthwhile, simply because IO is just so much better on them, oh and they come _with_ casing, PSU etc as well. For MorphOS fantasts it is nice though, but still just a toy - more show off than actual daily use.
How many MorphOS/efika users have the efika as "primary computer"?
How many OS4.1/SAM440 users have the SAM440 as "primary computer"?
And it was only supposed to be an evaluation/development platform for the next step in the plan, the 5121b based LimePC/"Cherrypal" devices (that unfortunately never happened).
What do you mean "unfortunatly"? Good riddance is more like it :-)
But what do we see if we look at the Sam? We see a motherboard that costs about as much as a PowerStation (another relatively low volume machine, one can suppose), with *four* G5 cores, 4MB L2 cache, 4 Altivec units, 8 FPU units, etc, etc.
ZOMFG WHY HAVENT I BOUGHT ONE ALREADY??!!!11
Hohum, it's a fully assembled SAM440 with preinstalled OS4.1 that costs as much as the equally fully assembled PowerStation with YDL (USD 1125,-)
Can one buy PowerStation mobo separate?
One of the nice features of the PowerStation is that it is buildt into an IBM case that also is rackable. Definetly a most wanted feature of OS4 and MorphOS users.
But yes, since you pull it in - why the heck is _neither_ OS4 nor MorphOS ported to this beast? Duh...
The Sam costs about as much, but is outperformed by *PDA's*!
I need to remember this thread when I argue against people who claim PDAs are dead :lol:
But again, you assume that CPU power is everything, which isnt the case. For what it's worth, I've had PDAs running as network servers for close to a decade now, so this is really, really old news.
I'm sorry, but this is as useless than an old Trabant sold at the price tag of a Ferrari; only the few die hard Trabant brand followers will even consider it, effectively making this a *none option* as a future platform. It's not an option. It's utterly useless from a future-building perspective.
Anything Amiga is the opposite of "future building" in the first place, so... moot point.
-
The real reason, the one they don't want you to know about, is that each new SAM440ep is infused with the cord blood of a newborn (some of which don't survive the harvesting process) from the APAC country of manufacture. That's why the PCB is red.