Order your A1 motherboard

[System]

Eyetech are now allowing you to order your A1 motherboard:-O

Check this link:
http://www.eyetech.co.uk/search.php?SearchStr=&SearchCat=AMA1

Somebody pinch me to stop me from dreaming!

[System]

Could this be the remainder of the batch of Dev boards that Eyetech ordered, to get rid of them Prior to the actual release?

Alan did say on the A1 Mailing list that the board would only be available when OS4 was ready.

[System]

This clearly a pre-order with unknown delievery date.

Not necessarily. We know a number of people have ordered the dev boards (Coder, for example) and are waiting on them, but that doesnt necessarily mean that they recieved an order for every board made on the first production run.

Alan explained why the dev boards hadnt been released, in an email a while ago, but again that doesnt necessarily prove that Eyetech didnt already have the boards in their possession.

Add this to the fact that the A1 is supposed to have a 686B on it when released but it is  clearly stated on Eyetech's website that the boards we can order now have a 686A.....

Just my thoughts.

Ps. Another thought...
There is no mention on the Eyetech website that this is a preorder comes with OS4. We all know how much they have been going on about how the final release board will only be shipped with OS4

[System]

I thought I read somewhere that Eyetech were going to release the A1 with Linux/UAE

You did, but......

This from an email to the A1 Mailing list by Alan Redhouse of Eyetech

We are not shipping the remainder of the dev boards (or any of the user boards) until this(boot ROM) code is complete because of the expense of
shipping update ROMs and chip changing tools. This is anticipated to be towards the end of August.

(snip)

Finally several people have asked us why we are not delivering the A1 board to Linux users in advance of the release of OS4. Well there are two main reasons:

1 - This is a product we are producing for the Amiga market and IMO it is proper that the Amiga community get their hands on it first.

2 - I still cannot see why there would be a significant market for Linux on the A1 given that the main focus of Linux is the x86 platform, which - because of sheer sales volumes - will always be an order of magnitude cheaper than a ppc-based product.

They changed their stance on Linux a while ago.

Also the mail above mentions they are hanging on to the remaining dev boards until the Bios is ready, which is why i think they are taking orders now for the remaining (unsold) dev boards.

Hyperion must have finished the boot ROM(?)

[System]

since you can order amigaone, dosent that mean os4 is ready??

If it was im sure it would have been announced on Amiga Inc's web site. (I know they are very slow when it comes to updating the site, but im certain that announcement would have made it). The latest executive update doesnt say its ready, either

These boards on Eyetech's site IMO are either the remainder of the devboards, or, as Kronos says, are preorders for the final production board.

The fact the site mentions 686A and doesnt mention OS4 being bundled with it suggests (to me) they are the remaining devboards. Weather they will hold onto these until OS4 is ready, i dont know.

[System]

I simply have to say here, $411 is a getting a lot more like it, but there's still a bit to go.  I simply wish at this point that I had $411 to buy one with.  The question is, is that Euro?  Is that US?  Is that Lyra?  What official currency is that?

$411 with the processor is -- I suppose -- not so bad, and if this were several months ago would be no problem, but now it's kinda difficult to save up for me personally.

[System]

Well if these are developer boards, that's the same price as before  :-D Sorry wayne there no cheaper.
It would be nice if the regular board was that price though! A bit cheaper of course is nicer

If they Mai boards are $500 US though (havn't read that item yet), then the price does need to go down a bit

[System]

@bhoggett

Thanks for the clarification...  In that case, Eyetech is still clearly delusional.  $550 is still rediculous for a 600 mhz machine.  I might have given them $400 for one (if I had it) but $550 is just unreasonable.

[System]

And what are you comparing it to, Wayne? A mass-produced PC motherboard, no doubt.

You're telling me that you think "1000" motherboards is not "mass produced"?   I can name to you probably two dozen new PC motherboards a year which dont sell 1000 boards each, and they all go for around $125 USD or less.  

If Eyetech HONESTLY cannot produce this already antiquated board -- with processor -- for under $300, then they are incompetent.  I don't think they are incompetent, so $250 or more must be profit.

But Eyetech are not delusional.

That's your opinion.  It's wrong, but it's all yours.

They want to be able to profit by selling this, which is generally what most sales expect.

Gouge and destroy the market is more accurate.  Historically, in every niche market (from escalators to Video production) every provider adds double the amount of profit of an ordinary vendor.  

Let's not forget that CyberPPC and BlizzardPPC boards were up to £750 when first sold - over a thousand dollars

Yeah, and my last four head, HI-FI VCR was $500, but that was 8 years ago.  Now they are under $75 at any Wal-Mart.

 It's a bullshit argument to defend the insane marketing and pricing practices with "yeah but this niche device cost xxx 10 years ago" and you know it.  Technology gets CHEAPER, not more expensive as time goes along.  Only the Amiga community doesn't care about such trivial realities.

I've said this once, and I'll say it again: Amiga is now a niche market, and an expensive hobby. The only alternative to this cost it is another operating system, or an emulator. I'll have neither, thanks.

You are correct on both parts.  The Amiga is a hobbyist machine, not a real computer, and it is also insanely expensive.  The choice of OS/whatever is your choice, but I can buy one hell of a G4 Mac with OSX for the price of an Amiga 4000 tower running at 50 Megahertz.  

I can't even imagine putting $2700 into the building of ANY PC unless you toss in 2 21" monitors and multiple processors.  

For me, I cannot justify all that money for a hobby to run an antiquated OS (4.x) on a dead-end machine (PPC).

[System]

Assuming a 850 AMD K3/4 equals the performance of a 1GHz Pentium4, and that a 700-800 MHz G3 can match the performance of the AMD

Assumption is the mother of all fsckups.

An 850 AMD K3/4 (was there such a thing?) is not even in the same fricking ballpark as even a 1.4Ghz Pentium 4.  There were no such things as 1 Ghz P4's, this, I know.  Even if there were, you can't buy them today.

Stop defending a bad idea.  The Pentium 4 is not the be all, end all of chips, but it's a damned site better than a piddly little laughably outdated, 3 generation behind, G3/600.  

Don't confuse my complete disdain for the AmigaOnce / PPC concept with my lack of support for the Amiga.

Hardware independence.  Anything else is just a red herring.

[System]

Yeah, and my last four head, HI-FI VCR was $500, but that was 8 years ago. Now they are under $75 at any Wal-Mart.  

The Pentium 4 is not the be all, end all of chips, but it's a damned site better than a piddly little laughably outdated, 3 generation behind, G3/600.

Lets look at it this way,

On Power Computings Site, a Cyberstorm with an 060 and a PPC604@233Mhz will set you back 559ukp, then, a Mediator will cost 169ukp, total 728ukp. I cant justify that when a new PC with all the bits will cost the same if not a little less (if you shop round)

Now a brand new board, with a cpu almost 3 times faster than the cyberstorm, and almost certainly more stable, with AGP so i can use the latest gfx cards, onboard sound and networking for 411ukp. now thats something i can justify. Dont forget we're talking about a complete motherboard here, not just an accelerator.

Sure its not as cheap as a pc, but neither is Apple or Sun hardware.

I have an A1200T with a 1230-IV in it. Id love to run a RTG system, but i cant justify the cost
so my amiga doesnt get used as much as i'd like. UAE is not stable enough IMO.

With the A1, im finally going to get the amiga i always wanted, not some fake system running on intel hardware, or frankensteins monster thats held together with sticky tape.

I love the amiga. and i cant wait. As far as im concerned, if it runs Amiga OS natively then its a real amiga.