Amiga.org

Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: SysAdmin on July 26, 2013, 10:38:22 AM

Title: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: SysAdmin on July 26, 2013, 10:38:22 AM
The magazine Obligement has published an interview with Trevor Dickinson, Director of A-EON Technology.

Trevor  speaks about the A-EON company, the assessment of the whole  AmigaOne X1000 adventure and its new projects like Cyrus, AmigaOS 4  netbook, Libre Office and others....


Link : http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwdickinson2_en.php (http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwdickinson2_en.php)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 11:57:46 AM
Thanks, maybe if Trevor offers one of the X2000 boards (or better two) to the MorphOS team they will consider it.
After all, they don't seem adverse to porting to the SAM460.

We'd probably get stuck with limited video card support though (R500 maybe).

Bounty to buy a beta board for a MorphOS developer?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: wawrzon on July 26, 2013, 12:40:11 PM
thanks for honestly outlining the situation, trevor.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: jj on July 26, 2013, 12:41:33 PM
So its more or loess offical, there will be no amiga os4.1 notebook
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 12:43:16 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;742386
thanks for honestly outlining the situation, trevor.

Yes, this new board has been anticipated for awhile (and the earlier revision has already been seen by a few before).
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: OlafS3 on July 26, 2013, 12:45:56 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;742386
thanks for honestly outlining the situation, trevor.

I am still surprised that there is still enough need for two high-prize machines after the X1000 is already sold to interested people. But he can do with his money what he wants to do.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 01:09:13 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;742391
I am still surprised that there is still enough need for two high-prize machines after the X1000 is already sold to interested people. But he can do with his money what he wants to do.

Probably only one board offered with different processors.
I'd buy one.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: NovaCoder on July 26, 2013, 01:18:42 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;742391
I am still surprised that there is still enough need for two high-prize machines after the X1000 is already sold to interested people. But he can do with his money what he wants to do.


Yep that's what I was thinking, can't be that many OS4 users still in the market for a new high-end machine (eg the ones who haven't already brought an X1000).

Anyway, nice clear and honest interview.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: spirantho on July 26, 2013, 01:20:46 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;742391
I am still surprised that there is still enough need for two high-prize machines after the X1000 is already sold to interested people. But he can do with his money what he wants to do.


I think there's a fair few people who don't have the money now but will have after saving up for a year or two - so it's not unreasonable.
Then you factor in the X1000 owners who want to upgrade to the latest model - remember the X1000 will always be worth a pretty penny, so upgrade costs wouldn't be as bad as you might imagine.

I think it's good that we will have a fairly regular supply of top-end, middle and low-end Amiga machines - can't go far wrong with that!
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: _ThEcRoW on July 26, 2013, 02:06:49 PM
The problem is that only high priced hardware is produced. And don't suggest sam as entry level because it isn't.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: vox on July 26, 2013, 02:09:17 PM
Quote from: _ThEcRoW;742410
The problem is that only high priced hardware is produced. And don't suggest sam as entry level because it isn't.


That is what A-EON decided to do. And what is an entry level by price performance if it isn`t SAM 440 knowing OS alone is about 100 euros?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 02:13:46 PM
Lower priced variants of the processors Trevor intends to use will be available in about one year.
These two, the T1040 and T1042 are slower, but use the same e5500 core.

A board based on these might come in at Acube levels while outperforming the SAMs.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: OlafS3 on July 26, 2013, 02:23:42 PM
Trevor does not want to make competition to Acube (even if he could). He will make it more expensive to protect Acubes hardware sales (he mentioned something like that)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 03:56:33 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742375
Thanks, maybe if Trevor offers one of the X2000 boards (or better two) to the MorphOS team they will consider it.
After all, they don't seem adverse to porting to the SAM460.

We'd probably get stuck with limited video card support though (R500 maybe).

Bounty to buy a beta board for a MorphOS developer?


Why should the MOS-Team port their OS to his hardware for free?

Just saying! ;)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 03:57:06 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;742417
Trevor does not want to make competition to Acube (even if he could). He will make it more expensive to protect Acubes hardware sales (he mentioned something like that)


Then he isn't a very good businessman if that's his attitude.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 04:04:08 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;742417
Trevor does not want to make competition to Acube (even if he could). He will make it more expensive to protect Acubes hardware sales (he mentioned something like that)

Well then maybe someone else needs to pursue it.
But I'm not interested in this as an AOS4 machine.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: OlafS3 on July 26, 2013, 04:11:52 PM
I cannot remember the exact phrases and he did not say how much more expensive. I think he was saying that he wants not to compete with Acube even if that would be possible. And that he would use the earnings for other related projects. And he said that the successor might be cheaper (as the X1000) but that is not certain. I assume that it will be similar to X1000 (my guess).
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 26, 2013, 04:50:50 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;742460
I cannot remember the exact phrases and he did not say how much more expensive. I think he was saying that he wants not to compete with Acube even if that would be possible. And that he would use the earnings for other related projects. And he said that the successor might be cheaper (as the X1000) but that is not certain. I assume that it will be similar to X1000 (my guess).

With the plan he proposes it is impossible to make if for anything less
than 2250 $ (+- 100 $) with custom case mouse keyboard and all ...

It will certainly be more expensive than that ... CPU is just not the
biggest cost in this and I agree with Nicholas that in business dog
eats dog ...

I can only imagine how "happy" ACube was when they heard that
another hardware manufacturer was entering tiny tiny market ...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: klx300r on July 26, 2013, 05:06:24 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742453
Then he isn't a very good businessman if that's his attitude.

all I care about is he's a passionate amiga user 1'st and that to date he has done what he has said he would do:) ..now if certain 'businessmen' had accomplished half of what he has done for the Amiga community then.....you get the drift;)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 26, 2013, 05:14:03 PM
Quote from: klx300r;742470
all I care about is he's a passionate amiga user 1'st and that to date he has done what he has said he would do:) ..now if certain 'businessmen' had accomplished half of what he has done for the Amiga community then.....you get the drift;)

It is _my personal opinion_ that "he" could do a lot better if he really
wanted to ...

AmigaOne x1000 has split existing users and although I never liked ACube
strategy with Samantha no better at least ACube was always trying to
support all three camps to the best of their ability ...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 05:28:15 PM
Quote from: klx300r;742470
all I care about is he's a passionate amiga user 1'st and that to date he has done what he has said he would do:) ..now if certain 'businessmen' had accomplished half of what he has done for the Amiga community then.....you get the drift;)

Bill Buck acheived a hell of a lot more for our community but he was driven away by the pitch fork weilding village idiots.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: klx300r on July 26, 2013, 05:32:32 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742472
It is _my personal opinion_ that "he" could do a lot better if he really
wanted to ...

AmigaOne x1000 has split existing users and although I never liked ACube
strategy with Samantha no better at least ACube was always trying to
support all three camps to the best of their ability ...


my goodness now you are asking for miracles:crazy: my 'personal opinion' is that 'we' all can do alot better if 'we' really wanted to:razz: Trevor is a self-admitted big advocoate for AmigaOS and Amiga inspired OS's (AROS & MOS).    

seriously though, how in good faith did the X1000 split existing users?? I sold my Samflex@800 to buy a new X1000 because I wanted to & it fills my needs.  I also bought a dedicated netbook to run AROS (AspireOS) because I wanted to & it fills my needs. So where is the splitting part ??
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 05:32:57 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742474
Bill Buck acheived a hell of a lot more for our community but he was driven away by the pitch fork weilding village idiots.

Bill would still be willing to do something for the community (which shows his forgiving nature).
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 05:36:20 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742476
Bill would still be willing to do something for the community (which shows his forgiving nature).


Oh no, he's the devil incarnate.  How dare he fund the best coders our community had to write a modern OS for us and on top of that fund the development of quality hardware at decent prices.  The icing on the cake that proves he is indeed Satan is that he even gave away hardware for free to developers.

The very cheek of the man. How dare he indeed?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: vox on July 26, 2013, 05:37:07 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742466

I can only imagine how "happy" ACube was when they heard that
another hardware manufacturer was entering tiny tiny market ...


They well divided the market segments, and its good - way better high end then SAM 460.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: vox on July 26, 2013, 05:38:47 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742480
Oh no, he's the devil incarnate.  How dare he fund the best coders our community had to write a modern OS for us and on top of that fund the development of quality hardware at decent prices.  The icing on the cake that proves he is indeed Satan is that he even gave away hardware for free to developers.

The very cheek of the man. How dare he indeed?


Please remind me of this case.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 05:41:06 PM
Quote from: vox;742482
Please remind me of this case.


Are you serious?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: J-Golden on July 26, 2013, 05:45:16 PM
Quote from: JJ;742387
So its more or loess offical, there will be no amiga os4.1 notebook


I think it's more of a "maybe" just not what was originally thought.  He said they were putting those resources towards something else with a smiley afterwards so I'm hoping that means same idea, different, more cost effective hardware.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 26, 2013, 05:46:36 PM
Quote from: klx300r;742475
my goodness now you are asking for miracles:crazy: my 'personal opinion' is that 'we' all can do alot better if 'we' really wanted to:razz: Trevor is a self-admitted big advocoate for AmigaOS and Amiga inspired OS's (AROS & MOS).    

seriously though, how in good faith did the X1000 split existing users?? I sold my Samflex@800 to buy a new X1000 because I wanted to & it fills my needs.  I also bought a dedicated netbook to run AROS (AspireOS) because I wanted to & it fills my needs. So where is the splitting part ??

My last post about AEon strategy for a while in news thread ...

2500 $ machine is not a dream of Morphos user and no Aros user will
buy it probably ( not developer , user ) , simple enough ?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: wawrzon on July 26, 2013, 06:01:52 PM
Quote from: J-Golden;742486
I think it's more of a "maybe" just not what was originally thought.  He said they were putting those resources towards something else with a smiley afterwards so I'm hoping that means same idea, different, more cost effective hardware.
remember that the community, or rather the more sane part of it always pretty quickly guessed what the misteries are about. the cpu for x1k. the mysterious netbook was immediately identified as limebook. so far i know there is no mobile ppc hardware suitable for mbile rebranding. so they are likely looking at alterntives, while not seeng any.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: klx300r on July 26, 2013, 06:06:22 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742488
My last post about AEon strategy for a while in news thread ...

2500 $ machine is not a dream of Morphos user and no Aros user will
buy it probably ( not developer , user ) , simple enough ?

Oh I see, perhaps you can create a new computer that will be made specifically for all Amiga camps and then one could triple boot into his/her preferred OS on the same computer AND you can do this for $500 (+ taxes of course), OR you can make the community agree on ONE SINGLE AmigaOS for ultimate UNITY again. simple enough?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 06:10:13 PM
Quote from: klx300r;742494
Oh I see, perhaps you can create a new computer that will be made specifically for all Amiga camps and then one could triple boot into his/her preferred OS on the same computer AND you can do this for $500 (+ taxes of course)


Bill Buck did.  For less money too.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: klx300r on July 26, 2013, 06:24:47 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742495
Bill Buck did.  For less money too.

'DID' is the operative word.  Let's await Blizz1220's new design on the hardware front for NOW ;)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 06:27:13 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742495
Bill Buck did.  For less money too.

I can confirm that.
While they have no stock amigakit.us still list PegasosII mainboards with a 1 GHz G4 processor at $461.70.

So more powerful than a SAM and cheaper.

Oh, and the OS was supplied.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 26, 2013, 06:30:35 PM
Quote from: klx300r;742497
'DID' is the operative word.  Let's await Blizz1220's new design on the hardware front for NOW ;)

When I said Aros/Morphos/AOS4 I meant Aros OR Morphos OR AmigaOS 4 ...
Just as long it is cheap and it is called Amiga ...

Enter new users ...

Make it only AmigaOS 4 and make it expensive and there will be no new users ... But I wasn't clear , I agree ... Although new users may come for one camp only most of them will be at least curious about other camps ...

But it's gotta be cheap and called Amiga(something.something) ...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 06:37:38 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742499
When I said Aros/Morphos/AOS4 I meant Aros OR Morphos OR AmigaOS 4 ...
Just as long it is cheap and it is called Amiga ...

Enter new users ...

Make it only AmigaOS 4 and make it expensive and there will be no new users ... But I wasn't clear , I agree ... Although new users may come for one camp only most of them will be at least curious about other camps ...

But it's gotta be cheap and called Amiga(something.something) ...

You've got a big stumbling block there, Hyperion.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 26, 2013, 06:45:42 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742500
You've got a big stumbling block there, Hyperion.

No , I don't think so ... Benjamin got you all a little bit to scared in 2005 and now everyone thinks that is the case ...

But stumbling block that exists is AmigaOS 4 users and I see no reason why
they would be the enemy ...

Trevor could make custom case keyboard and mouse , put G5 motherboard in there and Ben would be only to happy to let him port AmigaOS 4 to this new
A-Eon machine ... Sure , he would scream a lot but than he would have no choice , we could all buy it than and live happily ever after ...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 07:22:02 PM
Quote from: klx300r;742497
'DID' is the operative word.

He's still quite willing to do it all again and release the mobo design under an open licence.

He's just not willing to fund it himself so there's a bounty on power2people website.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 07:51:29 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742508
He's still quite willing to do it all again and release the mobo design under an open licence.

He's just not willing to fund it himself so there's a bounty on power2people website.

Can't be done, the design is not Rohs compatible.

I still think we'd be better off with a cheaper e5500 cored product.
Four cores @ up to 1.4 GHz.
That's four times the power of the fastest PegII CPU card.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Fats on July 26, 2013, 07:52:25 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742480
Oh no, he's the devil incarnate.  How dare he fund the best coders our community had to write a modern OS for us and on top of that fund the development of quality hardware at decent prices.


Some people seem to have selective memory. Don't find the reference anymore but Buck hasn't all MorphOS developers, one of them even released Ambient under GPL as reaction.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 07:57:26 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742501
No , I don't think so ... Benjamin got you all a little bit to scared in 2005 and now everyone thinks that is the case.

Wrong. not scared, pissed and insulted by an inferior hack.

Quote from: Blizz1220;742501
But stumbling block that exists is AmigaOS 4 users and I see no reason why
they would be the enemy ...

They never have been, just Bill, Ben, and his two German game programmers.

Quote from: Blizz1220;742501
Trevor could make custom case keyboard and mouse , put G5 motherboard in there and Ben would be only to happy to let him port AmigaOS 4 to this new
A-Eon machine ... Sure , he would scream a lot but than he would have no choice , we could all buy it than and live happily ever after ...

G5s are dated, currently Trevor is very much right.
More powerful Qorlq based products are coming out.

If anyone is serious, we can start now by raising money.
Talk is cheap.
Motherboards with SMD components and several layers are not.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 26, 2013, 08:51:28 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742517

G5s are dated, currently Trevor is very much right.
More powerful Qorlq based products are coming out.

If anyone is serious, we can start now by raising money.
Talk is cheap.
Motherboards with SMD components and several layers are not.

All PPC is dead unless you're building a router or something like that ...
I don't hate Trevor's idea because it's Trevor's , I would hate your idea
to do the same thing even more because of the prior knowledge ...

Here's an idea :

Build a PCI-E PPC expansion card for Mac or PC , it would cost less
and you could run all NG oses on that machine ...

It would still cost more than used G4 Powerbook ...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 08:55:38 PM
Quote from: Fats;742516
Some people seem to have selective memory. Don't find the reference anymore but Buck hasn't all MorphOS developers, one of them even released Ambient under GPL as reaction.

I know English isn't your first language so I'll forgive you for missing nuances.

Buck did (Past tense) fund MorphOS development.
Buck then stopped paying quite a few of them later on.

None of this detracts from the fact that he did fund the best coders we had/have to write an OS for us and also funded cheap quality hardware for us to run it on.

The village idiots around these parts chased him and the MOS-Team away, this is a fact.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 09:09:40 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742522
All PPC is dead unless you're building a router or something like that ...
I don't hate Trevor's idea because it's Trevor's , I would hate your idea
to do the same thing even more because of the prior knowledge ...

Here's an idea :

Build a PCI-E PPC expansion card for Mac or PC , it would cost less
and you could run all NG oses on that machine ...

It would still cost more than used G4 Powerbook ...

Consider the highlight.
I was talking to Paul Gentle at about the same time Trevor (unknown to me) initially was (in my case about MPC8641/8640 SoCs, which Paul also had experience with).
And no, it wasn't Trevor's idea, it was McBill's and Ack Systems (they set the spec that the Nemo meets).
Paul, on the other hand, wanted to use Qorlq processors (and that is what the X2000 will be based on).
Don't assume you know what your talking about.
Our design was about 75% done (and oddly enough without knowing it used the same Southbridge as the X1000).
At the same time Bill Buck and at least two other parties were considering MPC8610 based boards .

What I respect is Trevor went to the right company, threw his own money in, and got it done.
And I'm really impressed with Paul Gentle.
I backed out when the estimated costs would have meant a second mortgage on my home.

And I don't care what you do or do not 'hate'.
Actions speak louder than words.

Don't want to join us?
You are free to use AROS.

PPCs have more than enough power for our demands and there is always ARM if the need to migrate occurs.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 26, 2013, 09:26:07 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742527
Consider the highlight.
I was talking to Paul Gentle at about the same time Trevor (unknown to me) initially was (in my case about MPC8641/8640 SoCs, which Paul also had experience with).
And no, it wasn't Trevor's idea, it was McBill's and Ack Systems (they set the spec that the Nemo meets).
Paul, on the other hand, wanted to use Qorlq processors (and that is what the X2000 will be based on).
Don't assume you know what your talking about.
Our design was about 75% done (and oddly enough without knowing it used the same Southbridge as the X1000).
At the same time Bill Buck and at least two other parties were considering MPC8610 based boards .

What I respect is Trevor went to the right company, threw his own money in, and got it done.
And I'm really impressed with Paul Gentle.
I backed out when the estimated costs would have meant a second mortgage on my home.

And I don't care what you do or do not 'hate'.
Actions speak louder than words.

Don't want to join us?
You are free to use AROS.

PPCs have more than enough power for our demands and there is always ARM if the need to migrate occurs.

Well I'm speechless ...
Old Macs are good enough for me , Morphos is fast enough OS on G4 ...
And you're right , you clearly have much better idea about this than
me ... You will probably get less users than Trevor though , he has the
advantage of am Amiga name ... I'm really done now ...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 09:32:57 PM
Quote from: Fats;742516
Some people seem to have selective memory. Don't find the reference anymore but Buck hasn't all MorphOS developers, one of them even released Ambient under GPL as reaction.

Buck still has Andre Siegel.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 09:37:37 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742529
Well I'm speechless ...
Old Macs are good enough for me , Morphos is fast enough OS on G4 ...
And you're right , you clearly have much better idea about this than
me ... You will probably get less users than Trevor though , he has the
advantage of am Amiga name ... I'm really done now ...


Nope it has the name 'AmigaOS'. They have no right to use the name 'Amiga'. Not even 'Amiga OS'.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: wawrzon on July 26, 2013, 09:44:09 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742527
And no, it wasn't Trevor's idea, it was McBill's and Ack Systems (they set the spec that the Nemo meets).

yes, i remember to be astonished to read the specs ains and ack anounced for their machine and then see the same on x1k..
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 26, 2013, 09:47:11 PM
Quote from: Blizz1220;742529
Well I'm speechless ...
Old Macs are good enough for me , Morphos is fast enough OS on G4 ...
And you're right , you clearly have much better idea about this than
me ... You will probably get less users than Trevor though , he has the
advantage of am Amiga name ... I'm really done now ...

Old Macs?
I've got four G4 PowerMacs (I promied to give two of them away), three partially disassembled Powerbooks, and an iBook.
You're damned right they are adequate.

And no, you're not done, we didn't talk about any of the projects on this site much.
Piru probably knew.
Andre Siegel now about my interest becuase we just exchanged messages.

And the design tasks for a project like this are horrifying.
I used to work for a company that designed its own 68K systems.
Easy stuff in comparison.
2 or 4 layer boards vs as many as 12.
Very careful calculation for lead length and tough considerations involving routing.
In substituting an ATI SB600 for the ULi Southbridge I basically had to consider every connection (ATI multiplexs several pins reducing pin count).

Then there's glue logic. No more simple dip devices, no you need an fpga.

And lots of the components are surface mounted (including the CPU).

So after its designed, it needs to be farmed out to a firm that can handle fabbing it.

A lot of people are using Chinese sources for this (even on small runs).

That, and the overprice processors makes it more expensive.

Anyway, the more I go back over this, the more I realize why I dropped it.
It is an over-priced option.

Anymore consideration, and I would be talking to Staf about an AROS bounty project.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Jose on July 26, 2013, 10:18:02 PM
The only thing I don't like is the probable lack of AltiVec. Otherwise great news, even if the price is not what we wanted.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Duce on July 26, 2013, 10:24:00 PM
Enjoyed the read, thanks for sharing it.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: VingtTrois on July 26, 2013, 10:42:50 PM
Thanks Daff!
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: OlafS3 on July 26, 2013, 11:06:09 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742527
Consider the highlight.
I was talking to Paul Gentle at about the same time Trevor (unknown to me) initially was (in my case about MPC8641/8640 SoCs, which Paul also had experience with).
And no, it wasn't Trevor's idea, it was McBill's and Ack Systems (they set the spec that the Nemo meets).
Paul, on the other hand, wanted to use Qorlq processors (and that is what the X2000 will be based on).
Don't assume you know what your talking about.
Our design was about 75% done (and oddly enough without knowing it used the same Southbridge as the X1000).
At the same time Bill Buck and at least two other parties were considering MPC8610 based boards .

What I respect is Trevor went to the right company, threw his own money in, and got it done.
And I'm really impressed with Paul Gentle.
I backed out when the estimated costs would have meant a second mortgage on my home.

And I don't care what you do or do not 'hate'.
Actions speak louder than words.

Don't want to join us?
You are free to use AROS.

PPCs have more than enough power for our demands and there is always ARM if the need to migrate occurs.


What PPC have enough power? The used Macs are not getting faster over time I assume and the new "Super-Amigas" also have "Super-Prices" and are much more expensive at the time. And then try to sell these systems to users outside the community. Propably there are reasons why MorphOS is hardly selling licenses with only few new users. It has reached the end of line. The same is for AmigaOS. They are exploiting the existing market to the limit but they will win no new users. Further stagnation and a slow decline. That is at least not my ideal and vision of the future but others seem to be accepted that, me not.

I think PPC is dead end and stays dead end. There will be no growth with PPC, no new users and no future.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 26, 2013, 11:18:45 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;742543
What PPC have enough power? The used Macs are not getting faster over time I assume and the new "Super-Amigas" also have "Super-Prices" and are much more expensive at the time. And then try to sell these systems to users outside the community. Propably there are reasons why MorphOS is hardly selling licenses with only few new users. It has reached the end of line. The same is for AmigaOS. They are exploiting the existing market to the limit but they will win no new users. Further stagnation and a slow decline. That is at least not my ideal and vision of the future but others seem to be accepted that, me not.


The blame for that lies squarely at the feet of Bill McEwen and Ben Hermans.

MorphOS could have been Amiga OS4 back in 2000 and there would have been no split, the Q/Box would probably have been a fully functioning OS by now and a transition to commodity x86 hardware may have come about.

We will never know now due to the greed and incompetence of those two men.

All in my not so humble opinion of course.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: OlafS3 on July 26, 2013, 11:24:31 PM
We not know what would have happened then, or when both commercial OSs would have died and all would have concentrated on one system (AROS). And it makes no sense to speculate about it. At the moment all three are more or less "undead" and should do what we can to improve the situation.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Fats on July 27, 2013, 12:54:45 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742546
The blame for that lies squarely at the feet of Bill McEwen and Ben Hermans.


... and BBRV
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: nicholas on July 27, 2013, 03:20:10 PM
Quote from: Fats;742617
... and BBRV


How so?

BBRV had nothing to do with MOS until after Bill McEwen decided not to use it as OS4 on the advice of the proven liar Ben Hermans.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: yssing on July 28, 2013, 01:10:47 AM
Thanks for the interview, it was a great read.

@thread, do keep up the nagging, it's fun to read :-)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: vox on July 28, 2013, 03:06:48 AM
Quote from: nicholas;742546
The blame for that lies squarely at the feet of Bill McEwen and Ben Hermans.

MorphOS could have been Amiga OS4 back in 2000 and there would have been no split, the Q/Box would probably have been a fully functioning OS by now and a transition to commodity x86 hardware may have come about.

We will never know now due to the greed and incompetence of those two men.

All in my not so humble opinion of course.

MorphOS has not been the chosen one, which could skip a lot of good work (like AOS4 is not yet MUI4 ... just as an example. As well as I do like reggae as sound interfrace and those butterflies). It has its shots, software depot, discussion zone, free to try version (great one!, once again consider SAMs and X1000 before going to x86) ... PPC apps since
2000 http://mos.aminet.net/search?arch[]=ppc-morphos&sort=date

... but there is no crying over What IF

I am looking forward to see next MorphOS, it would be great if I could run it
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: vox on July 28, 2013, 03:09:21 AM
Quote from: OlafS3;742543
What PPC have enough power?

I think PPC is dead end and stays dead end. There will be no growth with PPC, no new users and no future.

Somehow they keep diging CPUs. And they are not bad at all, take away consideration that you probably have stronger x86 already, or if you need one, you can go to the local store.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Fats on July 28, 2013, 01:15:10 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742636
How so?

BBRV had nothing to do with MOS until after Bill McEwen decided not to use it as OS4 on the advice of the proven liar Ben Hermans.


OK, you seem to be right and BBRV was only involved from 2001 on and I am projecting some of the behavior of Ralph Smidth & co. to Bill. Remember that before this OS4 vs MorphOS you also had other fights like PowerUp vs WarpOS where AFAICR Ben Hermans was not involved. These things play a role when deciding who you ask to develop software for you.
Each of the camps had their own personalities and the situation was like children blaming the other starting the fight. So painting Ben Hermans as the satan and not looking at the other side is doing history injustice.

Luckily most people have moved on. I don't see discussion in AROS world of how bad MOS or OS4 is. Nor do I see these post from OS4 people on MOS; the devs only comment on practical questions and don't react on these offensive comments anymore. Only in the MOS world there seem to be some die-hards who can't leave the past behind and try keep on stirring the pot.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Andre.Siegel on July 28, 2013, 02:48:03 PM
Quote from: Iggy;742531
Buck still has Andre Siegel.


I am not currently working for Mr. Buck.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 28, 2013, 03:08:53 PM
Quote from: Andre.Siegel;742790
I am not currently working for Mr. Buck.


Sorry, I made that false assumption due to our contact related to power2people.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Andre.Siegel on July 28, 2013, 06:26:52 PM
Quote from: Fats;742773
Each of the camps had their own personalities and the situation was like children blaming the other starting the fight. So painting Ben Hermans as the satan and not looking at the other side is doing history injustice.
http://www.biclodon.com/misc/amigafarm/benhermans/

Quote from: nicholas;742480
Oh no, he's the devil incarnate.  How dare he fund the best coders our community had to write a modern OS for us
You would be surprised how few key developers actually received any funds and for how long. While specific components did advance faster thanks to funding, others were severely delayed due to the fallout surrounding unfulfilled commitments.

Looking strictly at the software side of things, it is difficult to definitely say whether or not the involvement had a positive or negative net effect. In the end, even people with intimate knowledge of the situation can only speculate about this matter.

Quote from: nicholas;742495
Bill Buck did. For less money too.
Unlike the makers of the original Pegasos mainboards, Acube and A-Eon are still developing and marketing PowerPC-based hardware today. So, in this regard, one might argue that they have the better, more sustainable pricing models.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: haywirepc on July 29, 2013, 03:18:54 AM
I don't understand why he won't say how many units they sold...

What is his a secret agent and no one can know how many they sold?

Its a valid question...

Kind of ridiculous.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: NovaCoder on July 29, 2013, 03:28:51 AM
Quote from: haywirepc;742892
I don't understand why he won't say how many units they sold...

What is his a secret agent and no one can know how many they sold?

Its a valid question...

Kind of ridiculous.


He did say 'less than 2000', this is the best answer given to date.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Iggy on July 29, 2013, 04:14:01 AM
Quote from: Jose;742540
The only thing I don't like is the probable lack of AltiVec. Otherwise great news, even if the price is not what we wanted.


Yep, the processors Trevor is considering (P5020 & P5040) lack AltiVec instructions.
There planed successors (T5020 & T5040) return them (even improve on them).
But the processors Trevor is considering already exist (at up to 2.2 GHz).
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: spirantho on July 29, 2013, 09:00:54 AM
Quote from: haywirepc;742892
I don't understand why he won't say how many units they sold...

What is his a secret agent and no one can know how many they sold?

Its a valid question...

Kind of ridiculous.


It's perfectly normal not to give that kind of information out.

How many Pegasos and Pegasos 2s were sold, incidentally?
For that matter, exactly how many Amiga 1200s were sold?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: SysAdmin on July 29, 2013, 09:05:52 AM
Quote from: spirantho;742915
It's perfectly normal not to give that kind of information out.

How many Pegasos and Pegasos 2s were sold, incidentally?
For that matter, exactly how many Amiga 1200s were sold?

Amiga 1200 sales, that's an easy one. It was more than a million and less than a billion.

:)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: James2002 on July 29, 2013, 09:24:27 AM
I believe that okay. Maybe I could build a Amiga.  I do have a floppy drive and Ide dvd burner. I do have Ide hard-drive.  

I am concern that  nobody hitting the 500-700 dollar range.  If  someone did all in one  keyboard case, mouse, arm CPU and motherboard. Uses sd card for the operation system storage device. If the end user wanted to add a dvd drive they add it themselves.  AEROS as the main system. Would that be a worth while option?
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: AmigaNG on July 29, 2013, 10:19:56 AM
Nice interview. I'm just amazed that his experience of bring the X1000 to market didn't really make him call it quits and move on (like a certain other person people been going on about it).

Its is a real shame that the market is split 3 ways (Os4, MorpthOS, aros) I think together the platform would of been so much more developed and much better software supported but I can understand why when people where unhappy with either the direction of the official platform was going or thought it was dying of, developers, users and investors thought there a better way and just not having the copyrights, trademarks, or source code is going to stop us. I think more users need to think like they do and think if I'm not happy with what OS4 is doing I'm going to support what I wanted the Amiga platform to be, and due to these three different platforms you likely find what you want and just be happy with the fact that others do think like you and need all the support they can get.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: billt on July 29, 2013, 03:40:59 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742453
Then he isn't a very good businessman if that's his attitude.


Investing in Amiga motherboards doesn't indicate good business sense either. I appreciate his nonsensicalness...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: takemehomegrandma on July 29, 2013, 03:44:38 PM
Never mind...
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: spirantho on July 29, 2013, 03:58:56 PM
People often think that "investing" money in my A4000 isn't sensible either.
Never stopped me, though :)
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Fats on July 29, 2013, 07:06:50 PM
Quote from: Andre.Siegel;742830
http://www.biclodon.com/misc/amigafarm/benhermans/


You just proofed my point.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: itix on July 29, 2013, 07:25:14 PM
Quote from: Fats;742964
You just proofed my point.


If there were people like him OS4 could be taken seriously by Amiga community.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Andre.Siegel on July 29, 2013, 08:15:32 PM
Quote from: Fats;742964
You just proofed my point.

I absolutely knew you would write this.

The link was primarily intended for people who would like to refresh their memory with actual quotes as opposed to rather inaccurate subjective remembrance of past events.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Rob on July 30, 2013, 12:43:36 PM
Quote from: Andre.Siegel;742980
I absolutely knew you would write this.

The link was primarily intended for people who would like to refresh their memory with actual quotes as opposed to rather inaccurate subjective remembrance of past events.


Yep only right that Ben Hermans gets the same fair treatment as all the keys players from that time.  All of them have a website dedicated to the worst things they said back in 2002 or whenever which is regularly dragged up to show what a bad person they are.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Rob on July 30, 2013, 12:46:27 PM
Quote from: nicholas;742474
Bill Buck acheived a hell of a lot more for our community but he was driven away by the pitch fork weilding village idiots.


Bill Buck was never driven away.  I'm sure he was still active on Amigaworld even after he'd moved on to ARM development.
Title: Re: Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson
Post by: Blizz1220 on July 30, 2013, 01:47:04 PM
Quote from: Rob;743093
Yep only right that Ben Hermans gets the same fair treatment as all the keys players from that time.  All of them have a website dedicated to the worst things they said back in 2002 or whenever which is regularly dragged up to show what a bad person they are.

Ahem ...

http://wrongpla.net/news/article159.html

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao: