Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: smerf on August 20, 2013, 03:02:01 PM
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Hi,
Just went browsing through the Amiga Stores looking for a new modern board to buy, I think the Amiga stores are charging to high of prices for what you are getting. For $900 some dollars I can buy a whole PC computer today that would outshine anything that they have up for sale, and I am talking about a whole computer, not just a motherboard. I was just wondering how many Amiga people out there didn't buy because they looked at the price and said "I can't afford that", and then after that giving up hope on getting a new modern day computer just gave up and went away, after all we all can't afford that much money just for a motherboard, it is just plain insane. Going to look at a raspberry pi, or a new nuc board, at least there price is reasonable and maybe I can do something with it, plus they are faster then anything the Amiga dealers are offering out there for a 3 times or more lower price.
Now I know some one is going to say "But the Amiga is a specialty computer, and there are so little of us that is why the price is so high".
Well all I have to say is "If the price was lower, like $900 some dollars, for a whole computer they just might have more buyers, and more people back in the new Amiga game".
What do you all think?
Let the flame wars begin.
smerf
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Take the FPGA route for classic Amiga software (A1000 to A4000 software in an FPGA ARCADE board, new and robust Amiga hardware) and never look back.
Screw these thieves that sell overpriced and underpowered hardware, wich has to emulate the chipset to run classic apps & games.
Go FPGA! You won't repent :D
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Sure, lower prices would attract people back to the platform.
However, these items are made in small quantities with massive development costs. If the companies didn't at least make their investment costs back (and pay some sort of salary to employees) then we'd not have any companies at all.
The netbook excited a lot of people as it offered a low cost introduction to OS4.x. I hope there's some way of using this obvious interest and demand to bring an affordable product to market.
If people want an amiga-like experience on commodity hardware then we have AROS (see http://www.ares-shop.de/ for a complete solution) and MorphOS (from http://www.morphos.de/ and requiring an old Mac or other PPC hardware).
Steve
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Gaula92: I love the look of the FPGA solutions, however you're ultimately limited in terms of performance plus architecture (it won't run OS4.x). Sure, this is a matter of personal preference and religion (regarding 'what is Amiga') but an FPGA only covers one segment of the market. Also, calling those catering to other parts of the market 'thieves' for attempting to recover development/production costs is a little ... odd.
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Why did the prices come as a surprise?
They have been high since the first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm).
Trolling maybe?
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Why did the prices come as a surprise?
They have been high since the first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm).
Trolling maybe?
No, I am not trolling, look at Amiga.org, doesn't it seem to be getting smaller, I mean less people, more people are giving up and going away. Now I love my hobby of the Amiga computer, and I would love to see more development not only for the classic Amiga's but for a newer faster version, with better graphics and sound. To me even today, I enjoy using the Amiga more than I ever enjoyed a PC, when you really look at it, some of the programming programs for a PC cost as much as a new minimig, that is why I don't program on a PC, therefore the PC is just a browse the internet, play the newer games, complete entertainment system for me. In other words it has replaced my stereo, my TV, my gaming consoles, and my calculators.
The Amiga could have improved and done all this 20 years ago, if someone really took initiative to get her done, but most companies just took her to the bank and made tons of money off the Amiga, then left her to die. Even today I just see more companies trying to make a fast buck off the Amiga and we take the bait and buy there under engineered processes for a high price.
The only way we are going to get anywhere is quit praising under engineered efforts, and ask where is this going and how is it going to help the Amiga community get back into the main stream of computers. So far the only real true efforts I see is AROS and (ok I am biting my tongue real hard on this one, ouch this hurts) MorphOS. Why do I say this, because for the price they are asking and the effort that they have put forth is truly worth it, and I am planning to invest in both of them in the future. (why a apple product, please look at IBM's new ppc computers, I think they are still with them). but even though I rant and rave about apple, the mini mac is an apple and it works.
So no, I am not trolling, I am just stating facts. Going to also look strongly at the fpga replay board, trying to find a price on it today, to see if it is just another under engineered product for a high price, if it is less then $200, I might consider it.
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The lack of modern software means that most people would only use it as a hobby or casual computer.
Lowering the price might cause the current hardware makers to lose interest and then we would have nothing instead of more.
I suppose with the small amount of users there is also no 2nd hand market for people buy an Amiga without spending a lot of money. Perhaps some more Amiga clubs where people can try Amiga might be good.
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No, I am not trolling, look at Amiga.org, doesn't it seem to be getting smaller, I mean less people, more people are giving up and going away. Now I love my hobby of the Amiga computer, and I would love to see more development not only for the classic Amiga's but for a newer faster version, with better graphics and sound. To me even today, I enjoy using the Amiga more than I ever enjoyed a PC, when you really look at it, some of the programming programs for a PC cost as much as a new minimig, that is why I don't program on a PC, therefore the PC is just a browse the internet, play the newer games, complete entertainment system for me. In other words it has replaced my stereo, my TV, my gaming consoles, and my calculators.
The Amiga could have improved and done all this 20 years ago, if someone really took initiative to get her done, but most companies just took her to the bank and made tons of money off the Amiga, then left her to die. Even today I just see more companies trying to make a fast buck off the Amiga and we take the bait and buy there under engineered processes for a high price.
The only way we are going to get anywhere is quit praising under engineered efforts, and ask where is this going and how is it going to help the Amiga community get back into the main stream of computers. So far the only real true efforts I see is AROS and (ok I am biting my tongue real hard on this one, ouch this hurts) MorphOS. Why do I say this, because for the price they are asking and the effort that they have put forth is truly worth it, and I am planning to invest in both of them in the future. (why a apple product, please look at IBM's new ppc computers, I think they are still with them). but even though I rant and rave about apple, the mini mac is an apple and it works.
So no, I am not trolling, I am just stating facts. Going to also look strongly at the fpga replay board, trying to find a price on it today, to see if it is just another under engineered product for a high price, if it is less then $200, I might consider it.
@smerf
You do understand that morph users has the same problem as classic users...
the hardware is old and while lower in cost to buy used, the repairs or replacement costs starts adding up. In my case I had to replace a power supply and graphics card on a used mac for morph.
The only NEW hardware is Acube's SAM and AEon X1000 even if the price offends.
M
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Hi,
Just went browsing through the Amiga Stores looking for a new modern board to buy, I think the Amiga stores are charging to high of prices for what you are getting. For $900 some dollars I can buy a whole PC computer today that would outshine anything that they have up for sale, and I am talking about a whole computer, not just a motherboard. I was just wondering how many Amiga people out there didn't buy because they looked at the price and said "I can't afford that", and then after that giving up hope on getting a new modern day computer just gave up and went away, after all we all can't afford that much money just for a motherboard, it is just plain insane. Going to look at a raspberry pi, or a new nuc board, at least there price is reasonable and maybe I can do something with it, plus they are faster then anything the Amiga dealers are offering out there for a 3 times or more lower price.
Now I know some one is going to say "But the Amiga is a specialty computer, and there are so little of us that is why the price is so high".
Well all I have to say is "If the price was lower, like $900 some dollars, for a whole computer they just might have more buyers, and more people back in the new Amiga game".
What do you all think?
Welcome to a market of very very small quantities.
The hardware design I am dreamin gof currently has a US$900 CPU chip. (No, not what A_Eon said about PA Semi a while back, something else) If I would finish this idea into a product, it's simply not possible to sell it for $100 to end users. Raspberry Pi is not a good comparison, as it is not meant as a desktop computer with expansion slots etc. it's basically a $5 or $10 CPU chip, a PCB, and some connectors selling in much hither quantities. You're comparing Apples to tractors here. Not the same thing.
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:biglaugh: See? It's the same problem that has existed for a long time in the Amiga community.
Look at this example:
MSI NVIDIA GeForce GT 640, 4GB 128-Bit DDR3, HDMI, DL-DVI-D, VGA, PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card N640-4GD3
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GeForce-DL-DVI-D-Graphics-N640-4GD3/dp/B00BGUEWKC/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377013866&sr=1-1&keywords=MSI+4GB+video+card
That is the kind of card someone with "Amiga OS" should be buying these days. The focus: on Amiga OS being able to use such. (read: plentiful, accessible, inexpensive hardware).
Custom = expensive.
Commodity hardware doesn't equal (!=) bad, necessarily.
The PC world--whether deliberate or not; whether stumbling upon the idea 'accidentally' or not--basically saw video graphics cards become like the AGNUS or FAT AGNUS chip. That's how a modern Amiga OS should handle modern video graphics cards, at any rate.
And beyond the one linked above, which has 4 Gigabytes of video RAM (compare that to the idea of the agnus chip, okay?), there are cards with greater RAM. 8GB, 16GB, etc. It never ends; new products continually arrive, with better features. Faster, greater capacity, and so on.
I always find it funny when today's developers of the Amiga 'market' (if one can call its paltry size a market) haven't evolved or changed. Of course, part of the fault and blame and problem has been those developing the Amiga OS itself, or handling that, to move the OS into the future. Why do I find it funny? Because PAST luminaries of the Amiga have agreed with my viewpoint. Carl Sassenrath agreed on the remarkable and interesting notion of the Amiga OS on an exokernel (and there have been discussions that Exec was closer to an exokernel rather than microkernel). Dave Haynie has commented before about using modern hardware. It just makes no sense not to.
Most of the moves by those at the controls of Amiga OS or its hardware have equated to: "Let's keep this a NICHE platform. Our own little hobby. Anyone who wants to pay, will greatly pay." Or some similar attitude. The behavior and reality proves this. And Gateway's 'We didn't buy Amiga to make it smaller'...? :lol:
Now it's gone full circle. From the SPLIT between Amiga and Commodore, with ESCOM selling both to different parties... to Commodore now owning Amiga again. I think that's one whole chapter that is over now. So many changes of hands, and what...really...has advanced?
And, just for the record, I never did buy the idea that a new computer or OS couldn't come along to challenge what is currently out there "because what is currently out there is so massive and ubiquitous", etc. At ANY time, a real rebel may come along and challenge the status quo. That's how we all advance. All it takes is willpower to do it--and the money follows the willpower, if you've got a good enough idea.
Approached differently, an Amiga OS being able to run boards like the one I linked above... could create the scenario where these developers of the currently overpriced hardware (or: hardware priced high to recoup because of low production numbers, to be fair) focus their attention on creating boards that compete. Unless some developers are just lazy and old and don't want to push themselves to be Amiga-like. :) Nothing stops them from using off-the-shelf parts, just like the modern board makers do. I mean, they do that, anyway. In the end, a capacitor is just a capacitor, a resistor a resistor, and silicon, and so on.
Amiga, to be anything more than an extremely niche hobby OS, is going to require a sea change of thinking. It's going to require some DARING. One good thing: nobody would EVERY expect anything from it; so it has the advantage of rivals underestimating it--even to the point of ridicule and naysaying. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"--Ghandi. The element of surprise, like the old Hi-Toro joystick-maker front idea.
But this is just talk, I guess. Nothing will probably change. People don't like change. People are scared of change. It's as uncomfortable as the truth, which is ironically eternal.
:hat:
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Take the FPGA route for classic Amiga software (A1000 to A4000 software in an FPGA ARCADE board, new and robust Amiga hardware) and never look back.
Screw these thieves that sell overpriced and underpowered hardware, wich has to emulate the chipset to run classic apps & games.
Go FPGA! You won't repent :D
They're not thieves, they just can leverage economies of scale. OS 4 setups are suboptimal anyway for the enthusiast who only cares about classic stuff.
The FPGA stuff though is a dream come true.
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Why did the prices come as a surprise?
They have been high since the first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm).
Trolling maybe?
That comparison is not accurate:
The first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm) were cutting edge PPC stuff back then. No one would dare say that current AmigaOne offerings are cutting edge. So in the end price is a showstopper: you now pay more for less.
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@smerf
You do understand that morph users has the same problem as classic users...
the hardware is old and while lower in cost to buy used, the repairs or replacement costs starts adding up. In my case I had to replace a power supply and graphics card on a used mac for morph.
The only NEW hardware is Acube's SAM and AEon X1000 even if the price offends.
M
You are wrong, Morphos users are in the best of situations: hardware is abundant, it is reasonably inexpensive, and there are more skilled repair shops for them than several times what the 68k and AmigaOne users have together.
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All you need is someone working full-time writing drivers for all the new cards that come out.
When you compare PC prices you might also be comparing to discounted prices.
The SAM price is okay... if the CPU speed was double what you get. 1066mhz instead of 533mhz for the entry model.
It is seriously time to go ARM for a long term upgrade path. That might also avoid having a lot of the x86 expansion kludge that you have put up with.
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You are wrong, Morphos users are in the best of situations: hardware is abundant, it is reasonably inexpensive, and there are more skilled repair shops for them than several times what the 68k and AmigaOne users have together.
in fact i know few addresses where you can dependably send in and repair your genuine amiga hardware. besides i dont see the general shortage of it, you will actually always be able to find whatever you need for close to reasonable prices. and please dont tell me now about the ppc accels, who needs them? on the contrary i have seen a number of people walking away because they couldnt get their os4 hardware repaired and they couldnt afford or justify a replacement. and i dont talk about those leaving silently through the back door.
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in fact i know few addresses where you can dependably send in and repair your genuine amiga hardware. besides i dont see the general shortage of it, you will actually always be able to find whatever you need for close to reasonable prices. and please dont tell me now about the ppc accels, who needs them? on the contrary i have seen a number of people walking away because they couldnt get their os4 hardware repaired and they couldnt afford or justify a replacement. and i dont talk about those leaving silently through the back door.
I have to agree with you, I ´ve witnessed many OS4 users leaving for the reasons you mentioned.
On the other hand, giving a second thought, we, 68k users are not so bad either. There are plenty new hardware developments, and if we find price is steep for vintage systems, then we can always use a FPGA clone or use our enviroment in an emulator (and these options are not possible for both MOS and OS4).
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look at Amiga.org, doesn't it seem to be getting smaller, I mean less people, more people are giving up and going away.
I'm sure each person has their own reasons. Personally I have no intention of leaving amiga.org, but I do get a little frustrated when every day the front page is dominated by "us vs. them" "red vs. blue" "OS4 or whoever sucks" "wish we had an FPGA such-and-such" "these prices are terrible" threads all day long. For me, personally, I like working on the old hardware. I couldn't care less about any of the bickering or daydreaming, and I understand that low volume = high cost. I just wish there were more threads here where people could share ideas how to repair old hardware and keep it running well. But I'm never going to leave my old hobby computer, haha! :D
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If I could be guaranteed to sell a million boards, I would offer them for $295. The reality is that millions upon millions of PCs are sold every single month. Even at $100 per board, you could not sell 10,000 boards to the limited retro market.
So, to try to recoup developer costs and due to the extremely low production runs that dramatic increase production costs, you have to charge a lot for these boards to even break even. It's simple economics.
For a real FPGA solution, take a look at the FPGA Arcade project. I am involved with that project (but not the owner), and it offers a really good shot at making an Amiga emulation that is vastly superior to Minimig based cores.
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There are a lot of people who use one of the classic emulators, but don't write any software (or buy any software I guess). The users are still there, they are just not as active anymore.
What you need is more advertising first. Just lowering the price will not attract users. Get an advertising campaign going.
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There are the classic Amiga emuator users there - but I reckon they're mostly just in it for the nostalgia. The real difficulty, though, is getting money from them - there's a general attitude that "if it's old, it's free" - so although a lot of people are willing to use what they consider an old machine, it'd be incredibly difficult to get a worthwhile amount of income from it. Hardware you can do (look at the C64-in-a-joystick for instance), but software is a very different matter, especially as it's all downloadable.
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So no, I am not trolling, I am just stating facts.
Do you have a realistic plan to develop cheap(er) boards? Where the devs are paid normal wages for their work and not have to do it out of love ?
Didn't you notice that also the number of hardware developers has decreased a lot together with the number of amiga shops. This is not because they make tons of cash.
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Do you have a realistic plan to develop cheap(er) boards? Where the devs are paid normal wages for their work and not have to do it out of love ?
Didn't you notice that also the number of hardware developers has decreased a lot together with the number of amiga shops. This is not because they make tons of cash.
Are you kidding? Just ask the few people that know how much Acube sells their PPC motherboards in the embedded market (and I am saying this is not in high volumes), and you will no doubt see that just changing firmware and adding OS4 adds many hundreds of euros alone.
So OS4 hardware could be cheaper, if ambition was just a bit lower.
Anyway, sooner or later OS4/AmigaOne/SAM will be out of the current Amigaish offerings if they dont change their selling/advertising policy. It is a niche within a niche that will eventualy dry up.
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All you need is someone working full-time writing drivers for all the new cards that come out.
When you compare PC prices you might also be comparing to discounted prices.
The SAM price is okay... if the CPU speed was double what you get. 1066mhz instead of 533mhz for the entry model.
It is seriously time to go ARM for a long term upgrade path. That might also avoid having a lot of the x86 expansion kludge that you have put up with.
People keep saying this but there is no desktop ARM hardware to port the OS to. Just tablets, phones and small RPi style machines with no CPU power comparable to even the lowest specced MorphOS/OS4 machine.
Then there is the problem of hardware documentation. It doesn't exist for most of the above devices so how are the devs supposed to port to undocumented and usually locked down hardware? By the time they could reverse engineer the hardware and stabilize a port worth releasing said hardware will already be several generations behind and out of production.
AMD64 is the only sensible architecture, much as I like ARM personally.
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I've been into Amigas since before Commodore went bust. It's always been an expensive hobby. Back in the 90s, I subsribed to Amiga World and drooled over all the hardware I couldn't afford. I pretty much have all of it these days for, given the general high prices for prime used Amiga gear, much less than I would have paid in the 90s. Of course, it's outdated technology but it still has it's charm and I find it kind of funny that there is still so much interest in it. Nothing comparable in the Mac and PC world.
Back in the day, the Mac was an even more expensive platform but the used Mac Quadras aren't worth anything like an what an A4000 is. The Amiga actually had the low end 500s, 600s and 1200s for the masses. Apple wasn't interested in low end products and all the kids who played with low end Amigas became the adults who fueled the ongoing passion for the Amiga.
Producing new hardware for an old platform is a labor of love more than anything else. The tools to make the hardware are much cheaper these days but it's still a lot of investment for a small return. Specialized electronics with small production runs is always an expensive proposition. It's not just Amigas. There is actually quite a bit of it out there in the world. One of my jobs is maintaining an electronic card control system that is a very specialized piece of hardware with several hundred in existance at most. Original price was around $15,000. Two spare modules were purchased last year for around $1500 because the company no longer produces or supports this product.
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Hi,
I understand most of what you all are saying, but I still think that if someone would lower their price so that they could sell quantity this might draw more people back into the Amiga scene, I have looked at the fpga board and sort of like what I see. What I am thinking is get a bunch of people to buy whatever, and then get programmers together to make programs, and then get a rag going to accent our new device. Commodore did this in the C64, and the Amiga. They had to give software support, and then magazine support until the click became the bomb. With the Amiga they had the world by the basketballs and let it slip away to the winblows scene. Bill Gates saw what he wanted in the Amiga, and slowly moved the PC from what it was to the Amiga and then above it. If you ever seen pictures of his office, there is an Amiga 1000 sitting on one of his book shelves in the background, rumor had it that he was very jealous of what the Amiga could do, and made plans to build something better, which as we know became the modern day PC which today is a true entertainment system that can replace game consoles, movie theaters, TV, stereo, calculators, and rendering farms.
Well just hoping that something breaks us back in the forefront soon.
smerf
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The price has gone down some. It was about 863.16 before shipping. I wish they would be able to market it well. Amigaos comes with it. It don’t have a case. I guess in a way if person had a 3d printer they could make themselves all in one keyboard case.
If Hyperion Entertainment owned all trademark and patents it might have a better chance than Amiga INC in Delware. Who knows.
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People keep saying this but there is no desktop ARM hardware to port the OS to. Just tablets, phones and small RPi style machines with no CPU power comparable to even the lowest specced MorphOS/OS4 machine.
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/Exynos/platform_partners_platform.html
this looks good http://hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G135235611947
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It's not simply a case of how much the hardware costs, you have to factor in what you get for your money (OS, software and hardware).
If OS4 was making real progress and was heading in a direction that interest me then it would justify a high entry price. As it currently stands I wouldn't even pay $100 for a NG OS4 motherboard because I'm no longer interested in the platform.
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some of the programming programs for a PC cost as much as a new minimig, that is why I don't program on a PC
Are you serious? You don't program on the pc because some of the development software is expensive? That's crazy! It's like saying: 'I don't own a car, because some cars cost $200000.', or 'I don't wear shoes, because some shoes cost $3000'. Really, that's just nuts!
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if you look at this site latest threads:
http://www.amigacoding.de/index.php?board=5.0
the proposal is to define neo amiga approach as (as far possible) hardware independant fpga implementation and leave the hardware to the dedicated fpga hardware vendors, currently sockit board is beinng meant as price/performance most justifable platform, no custom low volume hardware can beat.
somewhat linked to that there is appraoch of a single developer trying to provide amiga fpga accelerators at very moderated prices:
http://www.majsta.com/
in intention to ignite a community based project.
i think there are welcome developments.
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Are you serious? You don't program on the pc because some of the development software is expensive? That's crazy!
Especially as most development software on the PC is free.
Even Microsoft produce free products
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-products
Although they seem to intentionally suck at protecting their paid for products to the point they might as well be free too.
The Visual Studio 2013 is currently free as well.
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/2013-downloads
If you hate Microsoft or something then use mingw/msys etc.
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http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/Exynos/platform_partners_platform.html
this looks good http://hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G135235611947
These things are nice but like I said, by the time a port to one is finished it will be out of date and most likely out of production.
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Are you serious? You don't program on the pc because some of the development software is expensive? That's crazy! It's like saying: 'I don't own a car, because some cars cost $200000.', or 'I don't wear shoes, because some shoes cost $3000'. Really, that's just nuts!
Lol
The GNU Compiler Collection is available for Windows, can't get more free that.
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Yesterday I had desire to write something about the topic but I give up but now I see that someone mentioned me so here we go. This is just my point of view and my experience. Here I will try to explain how stuff works in real engineering world and production of hardware and then I will try to explain why we can't go this way. Remember I m not an engineer and don't intent to become one.
Updating classics Amiga hardware:
I noticed that someone said that Amiga community is not so small. Well if we just consider that there are 10 000 active people in Amiga community and that economy says that 10% of those people are interested into new product you have 1000 people who would buy some product. Let's consider another thing that we don't have just one model of Amiga that we have lot of them so we need to cover lot of different versions but if we decide to cover just one version we need to again to drop for 10%. So now you have 100 potential customers in best case. So let's talk about the prices of parts. If you consider buying some compatible CPU at that quantity it could be impossible to order so low quantity. Seller will agree but price will be so high that your final product because of the price will reject another 5% of interested people. In other words people will start comparing your product and performance against much faster and cheaper PC peripherals and that is first mistake. Include free work in all of this because calculating how much an engineer earn per hour of work could drive this low quantity to unbelievable price.
Let's consider me starting Amiga 1200 FPGA accelerator project.
There are no trapdoor connectors and my conversation with every manufacturer was basically like this. Me: Can you produce large quantities of this connectors. Manufacturer: Yes we can how much? Me: 1000 pcs Manufacturer: It is too small quantity price will be high between 10 and 15 USD/pc
So first I need to buy 1000 connectors because that is lowest number you can order at most of the manufacturers. I need to invest 10 000USD in just trapdoor connectors and in the same time I will not sell 1000 boards. not to mention that I can buy PCI connectors for 0.20USD/pc. Now, FPGA if we targeting 300Mips we need to buy very fast and big FPGA and that FPGA can cost 150-300USD, again we can't drop the price because we are ordering just 100 of them because we won't sell more than 100 accelerators. So like you can see, not to mention 10 other components needed we are at huge investment and in the same time at huge price for potential buyers.
Creating new hardware
First problem is prototype board and one or two those boards can cost up to 3000USD, again quantity is the problem. Again serious engineers can earn 100 000USD per year and you need to assembly a team so you need to spend much money just to pay them.
After investigating all of this I made some decisions.
1. open source everything and people will join, experienced one will teach newcomers
2. test tons of parts and find optimum regarding price-quality,spend your money to test them all so we will not end up in situation others waste their time and money
3. earn money for living from something else don't expect to become rich from creating Amiga hardware
4. remove design dependence from all parts that will not be manufactured in future
5. publish all news in process of your investigation,again, not let people waste their time
So we are now not depended from MC68K series CPU, we are not dependent of specific FPGA model or anything else.
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I don't agree with the open source option. Open source will work if there are bounties. Linux has paid developers because they can make money doing tech support.
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@ElPolloDiabl
I don't agree with the open source option. Open source will work if there are bounties. Linux has paid developers because they can make money doing tech support.
absolutely wrong! for instance aros development is basically continously going on without any bounties. bounties cover particular demands that are not along the path the developers would invest their time in otherwise, but the main development is not funded anyway. this said i dont mind if there was more reward towards the developers, but it would never fullyy reward their contribution. so regular business cannot be the motivation anyway.
@majsta:
thanks for refreshing and at the same time open. motivating and reasonable input.
;)
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Majsta, you need to look into some better sources. You can get connectors made overseas for next to nothing (by comparison to the U.S.). You pay for the tooling and pin fixture. That can be a few thousand dollars. After that, you run as many as you want. They will probably be a dollar or so, depending on the number of pins. So, for 1000 pcs, I would be very surprised if you reached a total amortized cost of $5.00 per connector.
PCB protoyping is also very inexpensive now days. Do a search on alibaba.com, globalsources.com, etc. for PCBA suppliers. PCBA means both PCB and assembly. You would probably use a 4 or 6 layer board for the FPGA accelerator, and those are pretty simple to make. For two layer boards, I don't even get electrical testing done. If a company can't build a two layer board without issues, you should choose a new source. It's not much of a stretch to get 4/6 layer boards done. When you get into the 8+ layer boards, you need to really start watching your reject ratio. The suppliers I use currently build 12+ layer boards as a common daily build.
Getting BOMs quoted correctly is key. When your BOM calls for a resistor, cap, LED, diode, regulator, etc. do not give an actual part number as a reference - instead, give a specification and then request the exact datasheet for the part that is quoted in your BOM. I have found if you give a reference like a Digikey, Mouser, Newark, etc. part number that the price for your part is suddenly much higher than it should be.
ANY part that you are worried about being a counterfit - such as a FTDI, Microchip, Atmel, ST, TI, etc. buy it directly from the manufacturer. There are a LOT of knock-offs. Save money on the glue logic, PCB, and assembly, and don't skimp on the CPU, FPGA, PLD, etc. You can't afford to risk a knocked off chip coming back to haunt you later.
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Let's face the fact that nobody is going to make much money out of a classic FPGA accelerator board or any classic hardware for that matter. Even Jens has said he's struggled to make much return on investment from his recent products.
Someone is only going to make such a board for love, lots of funky love. That said, it might be possible to at least break even and (maybe) even make a (small) profit if it was done right.
My suggestion would be to go for a semi-open-source approach to the FPGA core design. You'd offer up the code and people could hack away and use that code to create BETA cores but control what code is good enough to make RELEASE cores. There are lots of very clever people who are still in the classic Amiga community who also have FPGA skills they would contribute to such a project if it was managed properly.
:)
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Let's consider me starting Amiga 1200 FPGA accelerator project.
I'm pretty sure I remember Jens saying he had already done the tooling to create the connectors and was willing to sell to other manufacturers such as yourself
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These things are nice but like I said, by the time a port to one is finished it will be out of date and most likely out of production.
It depends on how quick you port. As long as you get a board with open source Linux drivers then a port shouldn't take any more than a month per board.
All "new Amiga" hardware is out of date.