New A-EON Music Card for Classic Amigas

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No matter what you might think of development pace, atleast Aeonkit do their best with limited resources, to develop the roadmap they prefere.
Thats more than most of us do.

Yes, I would love to have both a clockport expander and A1200 soundcard/Prisma, but I also realise that Aeonkit has probarly taken on TOO many things at the same time. Which in turn slows down each project. Atleast thats my impression.

I remember Trevors comment during his AmiWest presentation where he mentioned the danger of "featurecreep", always wanting to perfect or add features to a product, to the point where it grinds delivery to a grinding halt.

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Earlier Ive commented about Prisma and the fact that Nova used it back in 2014.
I guess what I dont find helpful is the negative tone that some people insist on.

I would have bought Prisma asap, but realised that if I want something, go for whats available. MAS Player is one option, which I went for.
At THIS point in time, Aeonkit might have waited so long that the Prisma card is already obsolete due to Vampire. Hounding them over taking on too many tasks isnt very helpful, since the lack of sales will hit that point home.
Ofcourse, if Vampire and Prisma together will increase overall expirience, then there might still be a market for the card.

Again, Im not particularly in favour of negativity.

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As I understand it Prisma Music card helps slow main processor to decode resource intense sound formats. That only makes sense with slow hardware, Vampire is also promised to have 16bit sound, together with fast main processor on vampire Prism makes no sense anymore except collectors who see FPGA as not "real" enough. But that market becomes smaller and smaller in future.

Yup, thats how I understand it too.

That said, maybe there might be developments softwarewise that will help improve performance with a Vampire/Prisma combination. The less work the Vampire has to do, I guess will be a good thing?

If Prisma was sold in 2015 after NovaCoders demostration, they would probarly have sold healthy numbers. Now, I guess it will be intresting to see how AeonKit can advance the product to the point it makes sense to customers...

Alot of assumptions based on too little information.

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Its not what Im saying, and you know it.

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I see. So it's the negative forum posts that prevents Prisma from released. This seems to be a recurring theme in amiga-land. I wish people have shut their trap...

Its not what Im saying, and you know it.

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What puzzles me is why Prisma havent been released for sale even if the software aint 100% complete. In todays day and age its no hassle to download updated software via Internet whenever the developers have tweaked issues/bugs.
Since Novacoder demostrated it in working condition back in 2014, it obviously had reached a point where it could be released.
Its a bit like Vampire; its being sold while still in development, with the customer 100% in the known there are aspects that aint working as it should/work in progress etc.

Personally I bought MAS Player, even tho I wanted Prisma. Since Ive already ordered Vampire, Im unsure if I will dish out for Prisma unless it can be shown to me that a Vampire and Prisma combination makes sense.
Im sure Im not the only one.
THAT said, I hope there will be such advantages if you already have stockpiles of hardware lying around.

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If your CPU is fast enough you dont have to buy it because your CPU is too slow. Offloading decoding can be still good idea if you need saved capacity for something but advantage of CPU bound decoding is that you can use existing players.

In AmiNetRadio we never supported MASPlayer (similar to this one but it was just simple MP3 player) because it was not possible control output from application or use visualizers. Neither it is possible wrap this hardware to mpega.library because mpega.library is only for decoding while MAS Player and A-eon music card does both decoding and playing and reading back decoded audio data would be too slow. Both have advantages and disadvantages, Amiga audio output is limited to 8-bit only (or 14-bit, but that is sort of hack), while music cards use modern codecs.

Its one of the reasons why I might find the card enticing even if I get Vampire. Every drop of added performance/offloading from CPU is a good thing.

With regards to not announcing available hardware that is still being worked on software side;
Again, take Vampire. People recive their cards, and programs crash/doesnt work, until a later core update or tweaks done to programs. The difference is that Apollo-Team got a IRC channel where they (and people in general with depth of knowledge) hang out answering questions when they have time.
That way people clearly understand and accept the limitations of the product in its current state.
In addition people keep asking for additional features, which like on forums, sometimes spins off into unrealistic dreams. Other users or developers bring those people back to earth quickly.

Imho this approach defuses the "tension" that comes from waiting for any bit of information about x product.

I realise Apollo-Teams approach to information is kind of unortodox and unsusually open.
But it seems to work

Btw, will the Card work on A600 with 604n that got 2 clockports (and eventually a Vampire)?

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@F0LLETT

Thats fair enough, wanting to be 100% ready with supporting software.

My question was at the end of my last post so I guess it vanished in the "noise";

Will the Card work on A600 with 604n that got 2 clockports (and eventually a Vampire)?
I guess the Vampire addition is a open question unless you have a Vampire to test with.

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the question is would it make sense to combine with Vampire?

how is it integrated? Does it operate independently or does it block execution of program until done? If it blocks program and is slower than the "processor" on Vampire FPGA it could slow the system. Perhaps someone could explain how it is (or is planned to) be integrated and how software would access it. If processor is slower for that task than the card then of course it always makes sense.

Indeed thats the question, something itix adressed to a point above.

For example, if people use DosBox/PCTask or Macemulators, every drop of performance is nice to have available. Or other heavy processes, like movies, future games or demos where coders can use mp3s as part of the program without heavy impact on the system.

Intresting aspects that could make or break a purchase for some. I enjoy my MAS player, but if there are clear advantages with Prisma even after Vampire is part of the equation, then Ill probarly dish out for it.