SAM 460 poor performance, high price

[zylesea]

With some good will Sam460 (895 EUR) is maybe in the class of Atom based mainboards(59 EUR), but for about *15* (!) times the price. For 300EUR I'd say it would be a fair offer. Yeah, sure, low volume production and such, but hence the 300 EUR.

Atom board: http://shop.e-bug.de/shop/product_info.php?info=p238816&refID=FR
Sam460: http://www.vesalia.de/d_sam460ex.htm

[zylesea]

Ah gawd, after reading, it's like they're pissing in the wind. All people want is a mac mini AOS4 machine. Why they go through all this trouble I can't understand. Just a few drivers and install issues away from Valhalla, so frustrating.

Well, there is a good alternative OS for the Mac mini available - it's calles MorphOS. IMHO way better than OS4. Okay, OS4's everyday usability is catching up since Fab helps to port his OWB browser to OS4. But why waiting for the wannabe, when you can use the original?

[zylesea]

Well OSX seems to be quite fine but Mac is quite overpriced IMHO

Just buy a used G4 Mac - they are dirt cheap and you can run the most advanced Amigaish OSes beside OS X. Especially the Mac mini is still a geogeous device: small, neat, energy efficient, pretty fast with MorphOS.

[zylesea]

Why would i use something that has nothing to do with  my hobby and is MUCH more limited and expensive than the mainstream alternatives?

Dunno - what was you hobby again?
Was it using a computer in the spirit of Commodore Amiga or was it woshipping a name?

[zylesea]

And I may be wrong but Im pretty sure the sam boards were not created specfically for AOS4.

That's a good question. Quite often the argument gets thrown in that Acube delivers to some embedded market. Yet I never saw evidence that Acube is *really* delivering (say at leat 25% of their produced boards) to industrial customers.

[zylesea]

Isn't it just as insane as making crappy os'es that's lightyears behind the rest? but i suppose that can be seen as a value by some.

Define crappy.
Whom do you actually have in mind who's making a crappy OS?

[zylesea]

Its funny moaning about the high prices, their be a lot of people out side of the Amiga community that would say paying 111Euro for an out dated limited AmigaOS inspire OS such as MorphOS for outdated mac hardware is madness. Its all a matter of perspective and what you want/enjoy. Hell Linux users must think everyones mad paying for anything!
 

Paying money isn't an issue generally and everybody has/his her own standards what is acceptable. And for me I think a niche solution is aceptable for 3 -5 times the price of the standard solution.

Hence MorphOS (111.11 EUR vs. 74 EUR for Win7 OEM): check!
Pegasos 1 back in 2002 (480 EUR for g3/600 vs. ~ 180 EUR for AMD Duron/800 + MSI µATX board + Cooler): check!
Efika 5200B (99 EUR vs. something you get for 33 EUR): check!
Sam460 (895 EUR vs. Intel Atomboard for 59 EUR): fail!
X1000 (~2000 EUR vs. Amd Athlon Ii X2 245 - 2 X 2.9ghz | 2gb for 169 EUR): fail!

So it s not the actual ammount of money, but rather about comparability. And I think the factor 3-5 times is rather friendly enough to cater for fond feelings, hobby, niche, #?. But of course these are only my standards.

For 300 I'd consider buying a Sam460, for 850 I'd consider an X1000 (I like the PA6T) - these are the factor 5 prices of the comparable standard products.

[zylesea]

i define all OS'es that can't follow the 2011 standards as crap. You know it and i know it that we're both using crap that would not had a chance even 10 years ago.

That is definitely not my definition of crap. My definiton for crap is more like bad by design and/or realization for the intended/advertized purpose.
I don't see the amigaish OSes see fullilling this standard (at least not the majority).
What you define as crap, I'd define as non-standard. And that is a big difference.
For example:
Crap was (spare) bicyle I once had: It was slow, it was heavy, the tyres had no duty and the lock failed miserably as did the gear shift. Though I got it for free and was intended as 3rd spare bicycle to go to partys with,  it not even fullfilled my lowest expectaions I had on it. When it was stolen I really felt sorry *for the thief*. The high roll-resistance, failing gear shift, soft tyres were not advertised. It wasn't a working solution, not for the lowest expectation - it was crap. If it was sold as decoration only, then I probably wouldn'tconsidered it as crap.

And MorphOS (that is the only Amigaish one I can *seriously* judge about): It does what I expect from it, it does waht was advertizes. Probably not a solution for everybody, but no crap.

[zylesea]

But like you and I have said we all have our own thoughts on how much we should spend on what is after all a hobby.

This is of course true. But I think debates like this one are good to understand our motives.

[zylesea]

MorphOS is a nice operating system, but is Amiga Os 4.x is made from original sources of Amiga Os 3.1.

What are teh old sources worth when the resulting OS performs less and doesn't offer as many features and has a worse backward compability?

I'm sorry, but when I was young, I used the Amiga OS, not MorphOS.

The older I become the more experience I collect and gain more ability to critically review long gone things...
Fond feelings are nice but I reality is something different. And to tell you what:*if you critically view your fond feelings (well, don't mix fond feelings with experience and hsitory), you can very much enjoy the present as it is. At leat *I* do.

[zylesea]

"2) How many AmigaOne boards have been sold so far and what is your  opinion on the demand for the current boards and upcoming Micro1A  boards?
Alan: From the publicly available figures it seems  that we have delivered more AmigaOne boards than any other 'open' (ie  not IBM or Apple) PPC-based standard PC form factor board supplier. And  in terms of real sales for real money (which in my view is the ultimate  measure of success anyone can give boards away) we really seem to have no significant competition to date"

FROM= http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=r&cat_id=3&rev_id=41&sort_by

Alan Redhouse: "on schedule and rocking"
Any more words needed regarding his business credibility?

[zylesea]

Out of interest, how much would non-OS4 user's be happy to pay for the 460 so that they could give OS4 a try?   Personally, I'd consider anything over 300 EUR a high price, all things considered.

300EUR (incl. German VAT of 19%) is my maximum. That would be 5  times the price of an D510 itx-Atom board (which all in all is better spec'd than the Sam460).
http://shop.e-bug.de/shop/product_info.php?info=p238816&refID=FR

I'm actually very surprised that ACube have even released a new MB, maybe they really do sell most of them to Industry?

That would be interesting to know. Some ppl claim they do, but there is very little evidence for that on the net...

[zylesea]

hey you just might get a Blizzard PPC card for that price with luck:afro:

For 300 EUR I can easily get a 1500MHz G4 Mac mini (which is significantly faster than the Atom) plus a MorphOS license. No need for old 603 stuff...

[zylesea]

If you guys support the G4 powerbooks within the next half year or so, once my wife retires hers for a new laptop in the summer, I promise I'll give it a shot.

MorphOS will probably support only the 1.67 GHz and the later 1.5 GHz. The earlier models don't use usb for kbd/tp. Hence, if your wife's pb doesn't happen to be a 1.67 GHz or 1.5 GHz (usb) model, it will not fit for MorphOS.