AmigaOne clones?

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neofree wrote:
Compaq (now HP), Dell, Gateway, etc are some of the larger examples of successful clones.  IBM today is still the leader, but I don't think they always were in the time of their own PC.

HP and Dell both outsell IBM in computer units worldwide.
     -Tig

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Skyraker wrote:

The reason AI doesn't see it has to be because they needed someone to develop the board (and in fairness to eyetech it was developed), with a view to them getting a 100% market share for a good period of time.. (how long is a piece of string.

Then lets be real fair, and realize Eyetech didnt develop the board, dont manufacture it and just a distribute it for MAI.   The Eyetech magic in the board is called a DONGLE.   Its not rocket science, I know rocket science and this definitely aint it.
     -Tig

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Troels_E wrote:

I really don't see why people can't understand that Hyperion have to take every step possible against piracy. Our userbase is VERY small and they have to ensure a certain revenue.

Understand, the dongle is not there to guarantee software sales, the dongle is there to guarantee hardware sales to Eyetech.  The dongle will be broken in a day, two days worst case.   Amiga Inc has encouraged piracy of their new OS by locking it to a hardware platform that has an Eyetech premium on it.   We could have the OS running on all the mac models, (and we will it just will be done as a pirate copy), instead we have a single source motherboard from our sole distributer as our last great hope.
     -Tig

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Kronos wrote:
@Tigger

OS4(warez) on Apple-HW ?
Ain't gone work due to missing drivers for the HW.

OS4 on Teron-boards by TerraSoft ?
Should be easy and you might be right with 2 days.

OS4 on Pegasos ?
Should be possible, but a bit harder (different SB/BIOS).

Kronos,

Though it will take some work, they have macs running Linux, Be etc, it will take some work, but drivers will get written for OS4 to put it on the Mac, with support from Amiga Inc we could have started out with that as one of the supported platforms.   I agree with your other comments.
        -Tig

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With a known hardware platform (the Teron board) plus the other version of the OS running on the PPC cards, its really not that big an issue.   Give a dozen Amiga geeks a weekend and its likely to happen, but it wont be 1000s of sales for Amiga Inc, because you cant buy AOS 4.0 with a USB dongle ready for installation on PPC hardware.  
     -Tig

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neofree wrote:
Tigger:

This may be true, but I work for HP, and they told us themselves that they are #2 to IBM.  IBM isn't just sales of computers.  They do a lot of service and software related things too.  It may be true that Dell and HP sell more units, but overall company value IBM is at #1 currently.

First of all the discussion wasnt about #1 company value, and frankly depending on what we are counting to represent company value, (sales, stock value, profits, etc) we can sort those 3 companies in many ways.  None of them are the #1 company in anything but their field.   We were talking about selling computers,  and worldwide sales this year, both Dell & HP (HP+Compaq) exceed unit sales of IBM.    The big 5 accounted for almost 50% of worldwide sales of appox 140 million computers.   Total Apple sales less then 3 million units, Dell sold over 4 PCs last year for every mac sold.      If you want to see us make your HP computers, come visit and I'll take you to see the HP lines at work.
      -Tig

[Tigger]

neofree wrote:
That all being said, I am studying computer electronics and plan to design a small computer in the next few years...  To those out there with a litle bit more of hardware knowledge...  How hard is design of motherboards for the PowerPC vs. Intel/AMD?  

I've read enough about the PC that I think it would be a very hard task to design a PC clone.  (Plus hard to market.)  Is it comparibly difficult for a PPC motherboard?  And is PPC truely better then Intel/AMD?  If so, can someone explain why?

Thanks,
Neofree

Its not any harder to use PPC vs x86, the issue is that if you really want to do a motherboard (with PCI slots etc) you are going to need northbridge and southbridge chips or roll your own (I wouldnt suggest choice 2) and there are alot more x86 bridge chips then PPC (MAI and Apple (which isnt really Apples, but thats what it says on the chip, and I'm tired of explaining the chips real heritage).   I believe are the only two modern ones).   The fastest x86 chip is not only cheaper then the fastest G4, its also much more powerful.   Current Dual G4 Mac at 1.25 Ghz is getting eaten up by single 3 Ghz P4 systems at less cost.   In 4 days we may see faster Macs, but all I have to do to beat them is talk about dual P4s and its all over again.   However I am going to make a comment about you designing a new computer.      DONT.    Its a silly quest, its Cervates all over again, and it really is just a windmill.   If you want to design something yourself, design something useful.   Get a Analog Devices or TI kit and make it into a sound card that works like you want, or build an embedded system that digitizes video, or figure out how to make some cool PCI card work in the AmigaOne or Pegasus, or get a PCI build card, and make a PCI card that does something useful to you, someone else, or just fun to play with.   At least a dozen people on this board have designed a computer motherboard, for most it was a waste of time that could have been used on not repeating what 100's if not 1000's had already done.  
    -Tig

           

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Alkemyst wrote:
ppl are focusing too much on the Protection to why they have no choice of PPC mobos to run Aos4 on.

If anyone thinks that the dongle code in the Aos4 rom is to just restrict choice & keep MAI & Eyetech the only mobo providers for AOS4
are ignoring the FACTS.

Even with out the protection code, Aos4 will still not run on the pegasos or any other PPC mobo that may come onto the market
unless Hyperiona gets a mobo & docs to write an amiga HAL for that mobo.

You are the one ignoring the facts, Terrasoft sells the identical MAI motherboard for $150 less, without the magic amiga dongle of doom.   It will run on that board, period if not for the dongle code, it will take the hackers a day to fix that issue.   Despite posting of old Eyetech messages (ie lies) lets be real clear hear, Eyetech is a distributer for MAI boards in this case, thats it.   The other MAI boards dont work with AmigaOS because Eyetech put a dongle on the board, period.

So infact they would not have to go Through all the trouble of a dongle to restrict choice.
They would just have to not write any HAL's for any other PPC mobos when they come to market.

So what would be the point in Making as much of Aos4 source code in portable C & having HAL Hardware Abstraction Layer if the whole plan is to run it on one mobo type.

Because when MAI upgrades their board they want to be able to move it to a new one, and MAI will upgrade it because their larger customers (Terrasoft among them) will want it, and little Eyetech will have to move to the new boards or not have boards to sell.   And your comments about the HAL and "portable" C would point to you having less knowledge about those topics then at very least most of the engineers on this board.
    -Tig
 

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Alkemyst wrote:
No the Facts are that this petition was started way before
a Terrasoft came on the sence to sell the mobo.

I have trouble believing that since Terrasoft has been working with MAI longer then Eyetech.   Are you saying that the petition was started when Eyetech still thought they could design there own board??

Only you have brought that up at this point & only now after months & months of this bebait.

Terrasoft stuff has been posted for months, we had the whole, we arent those boards, we designed those boards, etc from Eyetech, and then finally the truth came out with we are putting a special rom on the MAI board so you have to buy it from us.  

PPL are moaning about not being able to run it on PPC hardware of there choice.

From Amiga Incs (and frankly Hyperions) it makes no sense to lock the OS to the Eyetech board.   They get paid on unit sales, if they want to protect the OS from Piracy, put a real USB dongle on it, and let everyone buy it.  Wayne would have a dozen topics on how to run the OS on Dual Mac G4s, IMacs, Terrasoft boards etc, if that was the case.  Instead we have one supplier who blames Motorola for their inability to deliver boards one day before christmas.

As ppl think its just the dongle thats the issue with out understanding the HAL aspect.

It is just the dongle issue, if there werent a dongle issue, the HAL issue would be handled by the community.   Linux runs on the Macs, on the other PPC boards, there is enough info out there to make an Amiga OS run on the other PPC machines, its not that big an issue.    The real issue is that even once 4.0 is out, I cant buy it without buying a very expensive (and slow) motherboard.    Every single day of the year, Apple sells more PPC computers then Eyetech will sell for the entire year of 2003.   There are over 15 million PPC macs sitting around, is that really a market that they should be uninterested in running their OS on???   Dont want OS 4.0 on a laptop???
     -Tig
       

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Alkemyst wrote:

Most ppl here knew nothing about Terrasoft & the MAI mobo untill lately.

Lets be real clear on this, this topic is not about the petition, this topic is about OS 4.0 being donglized to the Eyetech board.   And just because you didnt know about Terrasoft, doesnt mean that the MAI board didnt exist before the petition.

Amiga.inc & Hyperion already said if a supplier comes forward with a USB dongle for there mobo then that would be concidered.

Explain how that would work, lets see, I would have to pay Hyperion to write a USB dongle driver for their OS, then they would have to release a special version that used the USB Dongle (not to be confused with Cool AmigaOne Rom Dongle (TM)) for its antipiracy feature, and then I have to buy computers (or motherboards) that anyone can buy themselves and put them together and sell them so noone gets AOS 4.0 without my cool dongle with it.
Instead they could have sold 1 package with the dongle and this whole issue would have been moot.

Aos4 is not open source & is not linux.

Gee, thats news to all of us here, we were all confused and thought the Aos4 was open source and Linux.    See you really dont understand why what I said was important to the HAL do you???   Windows isnt Open Source either, yet someone you can run windows on some pretty weird devices if you know what you are doing, and work on it.   But you can buy windows by itself, just like you can pretty much all OS's, except Aos 4.0, got to buy an AmigaOne with it or run it on an old Amiga with a Phase 5 board (and I'm still pretty sure we'll see some form of copy protection on that) or that it will be "different"   then the AmigaOne version.
     -Tig  

 
 

[Tigger]

Alkemyst wrote:

i didnt say how important the HAL is Hyperion did.

Hyperion??  Or Lawyer boy???   We were explaining HAL to Ben a year ago, so dont take too much of his vast technical knowledge (NOT) to heart.

But in the end your aproach makes copying as easy as can be CD to CD.

No, read my approach, AmigaOS 4.0 bundle is
1) Manual
2) CD
3) USB Dongle

Its no easier to pirate then the AmigaOne method but I now have doubled the distributers for the official boards, plus we'll see it run on Pegasus, plus we'll see someone (maybe even Terrasoft) run it on the Macs.   Is this really that hard to understand.

The point is to make it hard as you can for the cracker & the user of the cracked version.

And the Rom is basically bad in two ways.  One you have have the dongle on your motherboard, your dongle goes bad, you have to send your computer back.  Two you have limited you customers to people with Teron PPC boards with dongles soldered to them, not people with Teron PPC boards, not people with PPC boards, but one specific distributers board.  What happens when Terrasoft or one of the other distributers buys alot of boards and the smallest buyer (ie Eyetech) gets none that month.   Gee no amigas this month, but thats ok, because when we get ours we'll have a CARD on our boards.  

I can see by some of your comments that you have not been follwing all the events of the Aone & Aos4.
alot of your question have already been answered  by hyperion, here & on the Aos4 ML.

I see you believe whatever a belgian lawyer tells you whether it makes technical sense or not.    The original AmigaOS has been moved to at least 3 different non-amiga hardware platforms the best known beeing the Dracos, its strange they needed only the RKMs to do this in all 3 cases, yet Ben believes that its impractical for the new AmigaOS to run on anything but one board from one distributer.
     -Tig

   





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[Tigger]

Alkemyst wrote:
i Get my info from the Aone & Aos4 ML.

Maybe you should to.

That would be the same mailing list that gave us such important tidbits as "this isnt an MAI board", "we designed this board all ourselves", "we manufacture the AmigaOne", "all boards will be delivered before Christmas"   Yeah you are right, I dont find it full of alot of factual data there.  

And the fact is dongle or no dongle if there is a lot of Os4 copying then its all over.

THE USB dongle can be cracked as well.

Sure, just like the Cool Amigaone Rom Dongle (CARD), but the USB dongle allows people to buy the OS to try their other platforms, there is no such product with the CARD (tm) approach that Eyetech has implemented and so anyone who wants to try and run AmigaOS on a PPC board they have around will be FORCED to pirate the OS.   Gee that seems like a good way to prevent piracy, dont let people buy the OS.
 

the hope is that enough ppl will buy Aone/Aos4 before it cracked.

If that were true then they should make it available to the most amount of people they can, they are not, AOS4.0 is good for Eyetech and thats about it.
 

& let it run on every type of PPC mobo huge choice for the users millions of AmigaOs users running copied version of Aos4.
 
But very little money for the Aos4 coders.
 
All firms do whats best for them first to keep then afloat.

First of all there are not millions of AmigaOS users, there have not been millions of AmigaOS users for years, add to that that over 1/2 the professional Amiga Users out there have no interest in the Amiga One because it wont run their hardware.    I have yet to figure out why limiting the amount of people who can run your OS (Amiga Inc/Hyperion) is the way for the OS company to maximize profit, they dont teach that in economics here, maybe you can explain it.   I want to buy a copy of AmigaOS 4.0, but not an AmigaOne, why wont they let me do that, doesnt that seem like it would increase sales, and thus make more money for the company???   Or is Eyetech giving kickbacks to Amiga Inc for each unit, which is why we are paying $150 premiums on CARD enabled Teron boards??
     -Tig

     

[Tigger]

Alkemyst wrote:
Make it avail to as many ppl as they can.
your style is Aos4 with USB dongle.
that only would works on the MAI board at this time cos of the HAL.
wich you totally ignored.

You guys have let the word HAL became scary and have power over you.   Those of us that deal with HALs every single day, laugh at your fear and throw popcorn at you.   True if the only HAL that was ever supported was the great HAL of Teron, then this process would only support the 1000s of boards of boards Terrasoft and the other distributers will sell, but even that makes the OS 4.0 platform larger.   But what would really happen is new drivers and a modified HAL for other PPC solutions would become available and as this happened more and more people would buy OS 4.0.   Gee that sounds like a good idea again, much better then the Eyetech CARD(tm) idea.

Yes there are not millions of amigaOS users but there soon would be as if there was no protection in Aos4.
millions of a type of OS user's = nothing. you want millions of paying OS users.

Do you really believe that, do you really believe that millions of people are sitting around waiting for OS 4.0?   My approach offers as much protection as the CARD(tm) approach but increases the number of boards the software will run on several fold, with the promise of it running on even more platforms.   Thats more users not less, Eyetechs limited resources wont ship 5 figures worth of boards next year.

For the part you dont understand about limiting the OS to the HW Apple seems to do ok.

You really dont want to have this conversation with me, first of all last year Apple sold about 2% of the computers worldwide, thats right 98% were not Macs, in fact 97+% were x86 boxes.   Secondly despite high prices etc, Apple is not making money with their computers, look at their quarterly reports for the last 4 quarters, only one quarter did the computer division make money.   Is that really a model we should push for???  Which of the 3 companies  of the current OS 4.0 effort have a big non computer profit center to offset computer division losses???

You want a copy os Aos4 but not an Aone.
If its  cos you think the Aone is crap hardware then your on a no winner here.
cos atm Os4 will only run on the same HW with USB dongle, HAL only for MAI mobo atm & for amiga PPC cards.

If the OS is any good, it will get moved to better hardware, only Hyperion and Amiga Inc wont get royalties for it because it will have to be a cracked version, the other option would have had it people buying the OS for those hardware options.   Talk about encouraging piracy.   And lets be honest, for the price AmigaOne is crap hardware, its scary to have to pay more for an amiga then a comperable mac.    New Imac 700 Mhz G4, memory, video card, 15 inch flat screen, case, harddrive, DVD rom drive $1199.   AmigaOne G4 board $850, think you are going pick up all the missing stuff for $350???  Anyone else think they can pick it up for $350???   Gee that could be an Aos 4.0 platform, they only sold 750K units last year, oh wait no lets lock ourselves to the Teron + CARD(tm) board thats much better.
     -Tig
 

[Tigger]

Billsey wrote:
@Kronos and Tigger:

Do you really think Apple won't defend their own turf? Unless Apple provides those drivers, it ain't happening without an awful lot of litigation and people going to jail. Linux is a free OS that can be downloaded without cost. Amiga OS is a commercial product that would be in direct competition with Apple on their own hardware.

The very same Terra Soft company we are talking about who is the big distributer of the Teron boards from MAI, also ships its Yellow Dog Linux (PPC linux) on Apple computers, in fact they are an Apple OEM and the Macs they ship have full Apple warranty etc.   In fact they will even load Mac on Linux on the machine if you want them too.  Apple is a hardware company really, if they can ship hardware thats great to them, they'd love another OS to run on their hardware at this point.  In answer to your other dongle question.  The issue is that the OS isnt coded to check for a USB dongle which would have been fine.   Instead its looking for a Rom on a motherboard, noone is going to make special boards (I'm sure you've seen the comment from the Barbie guys), we cant even use the same board as Eyetech is supplying, because they are soldering a new Boot Rom to the motherboard.   If the OS had a USB dongle instead we'd have hardware options, we dont now, and thats an issue.  If Eyetech runs into money trouble, supply problems, etc we have no Amigas, thats a crazy situation for Amiga Inc as a software company to allow itself to be in, and almost equally crazy for Hyperion who gets paid on software unit sales.
      -Tig

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Billsey wrote:

That would be the same mailing list that gave us such important tidbits as "this isnt an MAI board"

they said it's not an MAI board because---get this, please---it's not an MAI board.

MAI makes IC chips and partners with companies that make boards.

Billsey,
I'm sorry, this has been beat into the ground so hard everyone should have a clue by now.  The board is MAI's, here look:

Eyetech to distribute MAI boards

These are the same boards TerraSoft is distributing, its the same board MAI showed to 1000's at Linuxworld in September.   Its the same board that all the Linux sites are reviewing.   They are MAI's boards, being manufactured by a subsidiary of Sanmina-SCI and then shipped out.    I'm getting really tired of this disinformation about the board being spread around.
     -Tig