FS: The AmigaMini A Dedicated UAE Box

[c64man]

About a month and a half ago I designed and built the AmigaMini a Dedicated UAE Box out of an HP t5735 Thin client.  They have been very successful,  and I am building more as we speak.   I have 2 ready to sh right now.  



Here is a youtube demo of the system
http://youtu.be/EorrcWZpnKY



Specs are as follows
 HP T5735 Thin Client
1GB RAM, 1GB ATA Flash Disk, Holds Windows Embedded
16GB flash disk,  Holds UAE and all other relevant files
8GB USB Flash Drive that mounts in workbench for easy file transfer.
Over 1000 WHDLoad Games come preinstalled on the 16GB flash drive, Along with 500 Demos.  WHDLoad License not included,  you must purchase your own.  


 Comes with ClassicWB 3.1 UAE installed and the system boots into  Amiga Workbench 3.1,  The cool part is it has Picasso emulation,  so you  get 32bit color at 1280×1024,  Looks great.  Boots right into Workbench  3.1 as soon as the system powers up.   You can also configure UAE by  just hitting the F12 button.


Internet access also works by just plugging it in to your ethernet network

 



$100 shipped in the USA
$150 shipped Internationally.

[c64man]

Nice. Will you be able to get UAE with PPC running as well?

Yup when the new version comes out just pop out the flash stick drop on the new winuae and itll launch automatically at boot.  You will be able to configure it by hitting f12

[c64man]

If I was interested in purchasing one of these, can I be assured that the back end intellectual property has properly been paid for?

UAE is free.  The ROM's and adf's are not, nor are the thousands of games you are including.

I find these machines in dumpsters at work.  I don't mean to be snarky, but making $150+ a pop off thinclients, I do need to ask if the proper rights holders are getting their cut, especially for things like the ROM's and ADF's.

You do have the proper licenses for the included software, right?

First of all I barely break even on these.  By the time I purchase the thin client,  upgrade the ram and internal flash memory.  As far as the roms are concerned,  they are freely available anywhere on the internet,  all you have to do is look.    My profit margin is minimal on these like I said I barely break even.  

I sold quite a few of these at the last commodore convention last week.  I designed this box to be convenient.  An easy way for most peeps to play with an amiga without expense of finding a real one. Or go through the trouble of setting up a UAE environment.    Amiga's are hard to find in the USA.  When they do pop up they are expensive

[c64man]

I apologize if I was somewhat accusatory, but you are selling the things with value adds like WB/KS installed, as well as a whole slug of games.  The ROM's and KS images are still "pay for" items that cannot just be handed out like they were an open source Linux distro.

Just because the ROM images and KS disks are freely available on TPB or somewhere, it doesn't make them freely distributable nor legal to just install on hardware without paying the proper licensing fees to the rights holders.

Me, I've paid for the KS and ROM images 5 times over, including the AF and OS4 supplied images I have, as well as 5 sets of disks spanning 20 years that likely cannot even be read anymore.  I wouldn't hesitate (and haven't hesitated) to grab KS/WB images off a torrent site when I've needed them, but it's worth asking a seller if the OS software they are including on products isn't just pirated.  Some people are indeed sticky about things like that, none more likely so than people like Cloanto.  Old software or not, there's still companies paying licensing fees so they can sell it in their products (eg; Amiga Forever).  I just worry about the legality of a well intentioned fellow "including" non licensed software in their offerings, and eBay wouldn't blink twice before shutting down a seller if a rights holder filed a complaint, and that would stink.  Include a cheap base level copy of AF and you'd have absolutely zero issues, imo.  It's $10 retail, and could likely be had for half that if you bought copies in even small bulk amounts.

Nothing personal, man.  I wish you the best on your sales.  Your prices are fair for what you are offering and I have no doubts you'll sell many of them to people that simply don't care to noodle around with WinUAE at all.  But I gotta ask the same thing I ask when I buy a new or used Windows PC that has an OS installed, and that question is always "this is a legal copy of the OS, right?"  As a buyer, I'd likely have concerns if the answer was "no" or there simply wasn't an answer provided at all.  Software not licensed/paid for is piracy, even as redundant as it gets with 20 year old SW.

Thanks,  Im going to be including a copy of Amiga Forever with each one now to take care of the ROM/Licensing issues.    As far as XP goes,  each thin client has a COA for XPe on the system,  I just download it from HP and reflash the units since they come wiped.  Ive since developed a clonezilla method in which a unit is imaged from the network to save time.  

Im about to build another 5 and ill be including a legitimate AmigaForever ISO with each system.  And including it with the systems with my stock that I have now

[c64man]

How is the performance when for example, playing demanding aga games like super stardust aga? In my own attempts, I think you really need 2.5 or 3.0 ghz to give good performance for these things...

Maybe you tweak them better than me, I'm not sure. If so, please share what your doing to increase performance and make these things run smoother?

XP Embedded is a very low footprint operating system,  by disabling alot of unneeded system services and replacing the windows shell with WinUAE you free up a ton of resources.  We played AGA games Including SuperStardust AGA at the Commodore show on them,  and they ran flawlessly.

[c64man]

I also think these small clients are great. I am still debating with myself, if I should get one or not..

This whole project started because my 9 year old wanted an Amiga to play on,  being in the USA finding an amiga is kind of hard,  especially one thats affordable.  So I had a thin client laying around and realized Hey lets see if XPe will run WinUAE,  it did and ran great,  So i spent a day or so configuring it all up to make it boot right and look nice,   There you have it,  The AmigaMini Was born