3 Days to Amiga Big Bash 3 (UK)

[Lemmink]

Sure it would have been nice if the Amy would be mnuch cheaper then the MicroA1, but I guess that is just not possible with so small productionbatches. To bring down the prices conciderably you have to increase the numbers by 100 times and there aren`t that much potential buyers anymore.

Anyway even at the same price as the MicroA1 the Amy is in advantage:

USB 2.0
GBit Ethernet
Sil onboard
no GFX onboard (yes, I count that as a pro, as on the MicroA1 the GFX is practically nonupgradeable. Though you can waste the only PCI-slot it has with a GFX-card, if there isn`t allready a Sil sitting in there)

The only con would be the soldered in CPU, but with no CPU-Module available for the MicroA1 now (and probably in the future) it really doesn`t make a difference.

Troika sure didn`t start to design the board to underbid the MicroA1 price but to deliver an OS4 compatible board at all, as there was doubt for a long time if we would ever see something from Eytech again.

[Lemmink]

Hmmm... I seem to recall that a certain other board is sold for $499 with a 1GHz G4, or a complete system for $799, including a G4 @ 1GHz, 80MB Hd, Radeon 9250, Dual Layer DVD R/RW, and 512MB DDR.

That`s quite easy to explain. First they save a littel in production cost by using one of DCEs assemblingmachines for free (that is something you can either belive or not), but the major point ist volume.
The Peg II is mainly sold as an ODW now. The few machines that are delivered with MorpOS don`t hurt but they are neglectable.
I belive that the monthly production of Peg II is today as high as the total of all MicroA1 build ever. That`s exactly what I said, the economy of scales. Genesi found a way to increase numbers by selling the machine somewhere else then solely to the tiny to non existant amigamarket. Eyetech failed at that and Troika can hardly try to make any business contacts without even the board being finished.

And as for the license. I belive they (as no one else) will ever get a lizence as long as AInc. is involved. I still think it will go that way that the board and OS4 are sold seperately and the enduser will have to perform the "illegal task" of installing the OS on the machine.