Merlancia Industries Announces the MCC 1000 and the MCC 1200

[olegil]

Theoretically, Merlancia could sell the Pegasos motherboard bundled with a special version of AmigaOS (would mean there would have to BE such a thing, but given some time it's at least theoretically possible).

Practically:
I wouldn't trust Merlancia any further than I can throw a lorry. Which isn't TOO far, I don't mind admitting.

But if it means Merlancia are trying to get their #### together I am at least willing to give them a chance. The case design is ok, and a unified look is sometimes good for recognition. Think IBM, HP, Apple and you'll know what I mean. The AmigaOne is currently lacking this, unfortunately.

Actually, I would rather have a desktop case with AOne on the front, styled after the A3000 or A4000.

[olegil]

@alx:

To me, it sounds like a standard x86 or slightly custom PPC board in a nice case

The x86 is probably standard, but the PPC sounds like the Pegasos. Bill Buck commented recently that someone else would buy Pegasos boards and license AmigaOS4, I've speculated that this would be Merlancia for over a year now...

I still don't _trust_ Merlancia, but it would  make sense to license OS4 for Pegasos and sell it as the MCC.

A different question is if there's any Pegasi left or if we're talking Peg2.

[olegil]

@Coder:
I don't think Eyetech has any say in the matter. If someone wants to license OS4 for alternative hardware Hyperion/Amiga Inc are NOT in a position to turn them down without some real consideration.

But if the hardware is a Peg, Hyperion WOULD need some kind of copy protection to ensure that only Amiga branded machines (sold with OS4) will run OS4. Otherwise you're looking at a huge piracy potential which Hyperion are NOT willing to accept. But all this is speculation, no reason to go off the wall until it's been confirmed/denied officially :-)

(OS4 on the Peg with a proper licence kinda WOULD prick a hole in the balloon of a certain petitioning Swede, though).

[olegil]

Don't expect a full reply, Seehund. Way too much text there for a friday ;-)

But those who bought the SE while it was still shipping will be able to run OS4 on it when it is ready. I don't see what you're on about the firmware about either. What's wrong with it? I have mine right here, just so you know. Yes, there's been updates, but surely you don't expect there to never be firmware updates?

Or did you not hear about the lack of 82c686B support in the Softex firmware, which is the REAL reason the developer SE version shipped with the wrong firmware compared to the end user version 3 months later?

[olegil]

The MicroATX and the AmigaOne G3-Lite are not the same board. The MicroATX is an XE shrunk to mAXT, the Lite is an SE shrunk to double-eurocard (220x160mm or so, I believe). Details are furry, but don't think the mATX will be sold by Eyetech.

[olegil]

@MarkTime:
I've been in and out of doctors offices and hospitals trying to find out what's causing my pains this week, yesterday was NOT a good day for long texts. Today hasn't been much better.

Also, it is NOT my job to defend Eyetech/Hyperion/Amiga Inc. I just don't happen to disagree with Hyperion in this case. Also, much of the argument falls flat on its face when you consider the fact that OS4 hasn't even been released for ANY platform yet. Not much point in yelling about lack of support for other systems when it doesn't even support the targetted system, no?

[olegil]

@Floid:
The official firmware for the Teron is UBoot, which Hyperion wrote. They included RDB support (I'm booting Linux from a boot partition in an RDB right here), and thus all Terons got this ability. It's not like each and every reseller of Teron boards has to write their own firmware...

The dongle code is another matter. That isn't part of UBoot, it's just code placed in the same flashrom by an external program...

I actually believe that someone who buys a Teron to run Linux on it would do himself a favour by looking into using RDB instead of MBR. I've been trying to improve amiga-fdisk so it's easier to create a valid RDB, and Sten Luther (has a Peg, does Linux work) is including the v50 (OS4) bootloader extensions in libparted, the partitioning library used in the upcoming Debian Sarge installer. Now all I have to do is finish my changes to "kernel-package" and submit them. Then we port the AmigaOne "boot-floppies" changes into "debian-installer". From there on, anyone who installs Debian Sarge on a Teron/AmigaOne will have the option to use RDB :-)

(remember that they would have to use the amigaone linux kernel as well ;-) )

Edit:
Ok, they didn't _write_ UBoot. They ported it and added x86 emulator, menu, RDB support and CatWeasel keyboard support. Possibly more.