New Mainboard released ...

[Vlabguy1]

Looks great!!  Clearly there are some very talented people in the forum..The miniMig also comes to mind.  Im sure there are others..

All this stuff is nice..but talk about sucking up your resources/time/money/talent..

Why not focus on getting OS 4 to run on a MAC or anyother Amiga OS for that matter..If everyone one pooled together on one common project Im sure lots of good things could happen

Rich
ny

[Vlabguy1]

Granted..I will give you the Hobby thing..but spending thousands, upon thousands of dollars to develope an "improved" classic motherboard goes
way beyond the "hobby" level if you ask me.  While its cool and nice to see
seems a bit of a waste(in my opinion)..Don't get me wrong if this new A1000 board is avail. for sale I might consider buying one, if nothing else to support the Amiga.  

I think most people in this forum would love to have the Amiga OS running the older Mac hardware..
I for one would absolutely pay $200 for an Amiga OS that runs on my PowerBook G4 17"..and all my other Macs for that matter. :-)

Rich
ny

mdivancic wrote:

Vlabguy1 wrote:
Why not focus on getting OS 4 to run on a MAC or anyother Amiga OS for that matter..If everyone one pooled together on one common project Im sure lots of good things could happen

Rich
ny

My guess would be that most of us like the old hardware and are doing this for a hobby. That's where I'm coming from, I really don't have any interest with running OS 4, but I do enjoy playing with the old hardware and software.

[Vlabguy1]

The Mac thing you wrote makes absolutley no sense.. Macs are still being produced in mass..and much better than a PC or Windoze will ever be, face it.

Sure you can get a PC cheaper, faster..but the OS is DOG WASTE so whats the point?  Heck..port the Amiga OS to run on an Intel machine and I will buy one.

And for another thing..I did not bring up the "hobby" thing(mdivancic did above)
Why are you glad that I stated "in my opinion"?
Please list the pupose of the MiniMig, and this new A1000 board?  and dont say nostalgia..cuz I get that part..Because its a HOBBY..for those who are developing these boards(just a guess).   Uh..I paid$3,300 for my Mac not $10,000 on developeing A1000 replacement MB..a huge difference.
My point is that these talented people, and there are more of them Im sure should really come together on a common project..say like getting the current Amiga OS..3.5, 3.9 and 4.0 running on current(new) hardware.  Such as Mac or Intel...mmmm..

Please you dont have to tell me the many reasons to use an Amiga..I have been here for awhile.  I bet dollars to donuts that if the Amiga OS was avail for other hardware platforms it would sell and sell well..just look at the Amiga OS on Mac thread..

I know the truth hurts..but thats one of the big problems with this Amiga community..its divided

amigaksi wrote:
>Granted..I will give you the Hobby thing..but spending thousands, upon thousands of dollars to develope an "improved" classic motherboard goes way beyond the "hobby" level if you ask me. While its cool and nice to see
seems a bit of a waste(in my opinion)..Don't get me wrong if this new A1000 board is avail. for sale I might consider buying one, if nothing else to support the Amiga.

You could make the same argument against the Mac.  Why people spend thousands of dollars on a Mac (and it's add-ons) when they can get a PC which is cheaper and faster and has more standardized hardware and more software than a Mac.  I just picked up three for free that someone was about to toss into the trash (2 are 1Ghz+).  I am glad you stated it's just your opinion, but why would you support the Amiga if you think it's a waste of time?  Also "hobby" is not just one reason-- there are many different types of hobbies.  And there are also other reasons to use an Amiga besides being a hobby.  I prefer computers that have standardized hardware doing more things rather than software, but Amiga is no longer produced so you can expect prices to be higher to rebuild individually.

[Vlabguy1]

Opppsss..I apologize to the Windoze OS if I have insulted you in anyway..hehe..
Please, please dont take it personally..that I dont like you.  Windoze is power hungry, looks like crap, not very intuitive, security leaks up the wazoo, prone to crashing..etc...shall I go on.  On the PC hardware side things are awsome!!

I guess you misunderstood me..I did NOT state that owning, using and AMIGA is a waste of time..I have a few myself as well as some old Commodore stuff, been a fan/owner since the '80s.  That being said..I think the MiniMig is great, I think the new A1000 replacement board is great..but I ask WHY..and have not gotten a straight answer..

Check out the thread regarding Amiga OS4 on a Mac..it was quite popular, dont you think??

I agree everyone is an individual(duh)..but we (as an Amiga community) are divided.. and its a big problem, not to mention all the A. Inc crap.

I have been on the PCB manufacuring end of things..its a huge task (re) designing a circuit board and costly, and for what??  Perhaps the designer of the new A1000 board could chime in here, as well as the MiniMig guy..
I ask a simple question WHY?


Did you

amigaksi wrote:
>The Mac thing you wrote makes absolutley no sense.. Macs are still being produced in mass..and much better than a PC or Windoze will ever be, face it.
>Sure you can get a PC cheaper, faster..but the OS is DOG WASTE so whats the point? Heck..port the Amiga OS to run on an Intel machine and I will buy one.

Just insulting an OS does not constitute a good argument.  The point I guess you missed is: Like on the Amiga, the OS routines can be called along with directly using standardized hardware registers, similarly on a PC you can use the OS or bypass it and directly write code that uses the hardware (which is more standardized than a Mac).  I guess an example may help-- suppose you wanted to reboot the computer when a person presses the joystick button.  You can take a PC and code the following:

In AL,201h
Test AL,16
Jnz NoBoot
Mov AL,FE
Out 64h,AL
NoBoot:
 
Or you can find the equivalent API calls and/or BIOS calls and do the same.

>And for another thing..I did not bring up the "hobby" thing(mdivancic did above)
>Why are you glad that I stated "in my opinion"?

Because it's NOT a waste of time to many people and that's a fact.  I use the Amiga for games, writing/testing external device control stuff, and used to use it for genlock video titling.

>Please list the pupose of the MiniMig, and this new A1000 board? and dont say nostalgia..cuz I get that part..Because its a HOBBY..for those who are developing these boards(just a guess). Uh..I paid$3,300 for my Mac not $10,000 on developeing A1000 replacement MB..a huge difference.

I guess someone more familiar with the manufacturing of these can give you a better cost analysis.

>My point is that these talented people, and there are more of them Im sure should really come together on a common project..say like getting the current Amiga OS..3.5, 3.9 and 4.0 running on current(new) hardware. Such as Mac or Intel...mmmm.....

Which OS does the Amiga Zany Golf run on?  And what about that pac-man game that eats the workbench screen before it starts?  And what about that game that scrolls the entire display like a wallpaper (as if the OS did not exist)?

>I know the truth hurts..but thats one of the big problems with this Amiga community..its divided

Truth does not hurt if you already live in it. Everyone is an individual and has his desires and that applies to all communities although if the desires are similar it makes for a better more harmonious community.

[Vlabguy1]

Dave,

Ok..the MiniMig..and New A1000 replacement..is pretty much just for kicks..to see if it can be done.. :-)..Thats great.  And for people who want
to build an Amiga with there own hands..Understandable.

How about a A4000 replacement board..hehe..lol..

I was being a bit sarcastic about the developers of those boards to chime in and comment here..

The whole point that I have been makind since I first commented on this thread is that..its almost a waste of talent..when really we(as a community) should try to move fwd. instead of staying in the past.   As you can prob. guess Im not an Amiga gamer, although I do have plenty of Amiga games.

I for one am a huge fan of the A1000 case..and that computer in general.  I unfortunetly sold mine sometime back, and do miss her but I made sure she went to a good home in Switzerland(if I remember correctly).  I still have a
spare working A1000 MB.  

Its a shame there is no common thread/project to bring everyone together and move forward and at the same time keeping the past alive.

Rich
ny

amigadave wrote:

Vlabguy1 wrote:
I think the MiniMig is great, I think the new A1000 replacement board is great..but I ask WHY..and have not gotten a straight answer.........

I have been on the PCB manufacuring end of things..its a huge task (re) designing a circuit board and costly, and for what??  Perhaps the designer of the new A1000 board could chime in here, as well as the MiniMig guy..
I ask a simple question WHY?

I doubt that Georg or Dennis will take any of their valuable time to respond to your questions, but I will attempt to give you a simple answer to your "simple question WHY?"

First, the MiniMig was started as a project just to see if Dennis could do it, I mean put all the Amiga custom chip functionality into one FPGA.  Once he had succeeded he decided to reduce the size and put it all on just one board to create a small, low cost replacement of the A1000/A500 OCS Amiga.  There was so much interest in his work, he finally agreed to release it as open source.  So the WHY of the MiniMig in my opinion is two fold.  1. to prove it could be done. 2. to allow hobbyists the ability to create their own Amiga clone with their own hands.  It is unclear to me if the MiniMig inspired the NatAmi project, or if the NatAmi was perceived before the MiniMig was announced, but it could be a third point of praise for the MiniMig, that it has inspired others to create other new projects related to the Amiga experience.  Lastly, the MiniMig is current hardware to run nostalgic software and eventually some years down the road it will be more difficult to find the original hardware. (that was not nearly as simple as I intended)

Now for the GB A1000 replacement board, the developer/hardware designer obviously likes the original Amiga case design for his own reasons.  There are many German fans of the A1k as can be seen by the website dedicated to it, the Phoenix A1000 replacement board that was revived in 2005 and now with the GB A1000 board and continued development of peripherals for both.  The Phoenix and the GB A1000 boards provide a huge increase in performance and functionality for the A1000 computer that so many of us are very fond of.  The "WHY" is because we enjoy and appreciate the design of the A1000 and want to continue using one.  The GB A1000 allows us a way to use them for more things than would be possible otherwise.

As for the Amiga community being divided, that has been a fact of life for many years.  There just has not been any ONE thing to come along that has caught the imagination of all of us to work together on, and there probably never will be, but most of us are perfectly capable of being interested in and supporting many different Amiga projects at once.

If all Amiga enthusiasts were the same, maybe we would all be supporting AROS and it would actually be able to run all the older Amiga software and have a whole raft of new AROS software to run as well, or 15,000 A1's would have been produced and sold instead of the few hundred.

[Vlabguy1]

Thanks Dave..

Will check out those possibilites you mentioned.  I suppose for me in a perfect world I would really love to see the Amiga OS ported to the Intel side vs the Mac...although the Mac seems logical being PPC based..

Believe me if I ever won the lottery I would really consider investing in any Amiga project that may push it closer to the mainstream..or atleast in the
stream if you know what I mean.

Rich
ny

amigadave wrote:
@Vlabguy1,

Join the NatAmi team and help make the impossible become reality.  Or if that is not to your liking there is the MorphOS, or AROS camps.  AOS4 is so tied up in legal crap, I can't recommend anyone joining work on it, unless you can complete the Moana project and get it running on any/all PPC Mac hardware. :-D

[Vlabguy1]

Terse,

I like all the do it yourself hacks as well.. I love seeing how the limits of the old Amigas are pushed way beyond what people think could ever be done.

Certainly someone can get Amiga OS3.1-4.0 running on a Mac, please dont take this statement as me thinking its a simple task..

Looked at the Aros ..thing eh..not my cup of tea...

Still Amiga OS on a Intel based machine would be really nice
A great OS ..on readily avail. hardware..as cheap or exspensive
as you want..

Rich
ny

Terse wrote:

Vlabguy1 wrote:

The whole point that I have been makind since I first commented on this thread is that..its almost a waste of talent..when really we(as a community) should try to move fwd. instead of staying in the past.   As you can prob. guess Im not an Amiga gamer, although I do have plenty of Amiga games.

Rich
ny

I know it's not directed at me, but the point I want to make is that staying in the past is EXACTLY what I want from the Amiga community.  I see the Amiga comunity as no different than the Atari 800, Commodore 64, or Atari VCS communities.  I do not expect the Atari 2600 VCS to "rise from the ashes" and become a viable platform again, but I enjoy all the homebrew hacks and software projects that push the original platform far beyond what it did back in the day.  That's what I hope the Amiga becomes.  I hope we see coldfire accelerators.  I hope we see flickerfixers for Amiga 1000s. I hope we see AGA upgrades for the 1000/2000/3000/500/600.  I hope we see quad paula sound, Sonic the Hedgehog running as well as it did on the Sega, Ambermoon re-released in a retail box for US and UK English, a browser that lets a lowy 68K Amiga play youtube videos, a hack that makes OS 3.x look as cool as Vista/Leopard, etc.
Some of that sounds impossible and may even be impossible today, but maybe 10, 20 years from now?
I can wait becuse I know Amiga is a dead, dead, dead platform.  I let go of Amiga as a Windows/Linux/Mac competitor long ago.  Let AROS pick up that fight.  Let Amiga OS 4 come out for Macs.  Let Amiga Inc release a plastic kids toy with a built-in Adobe Flash app that looks like a GUI and call it Amiga OS 5.  I don't care and never will about any of those things.

[Vlabguy1]

Maybe..but it would be fun..Im sure :-)

Rich
ny

mdivancic wrote:

Vlabguy1 wrote:
Believe me if I ever won the lottery I would really consider investing in any Amiga project that may push it closer to the mainstream..or atleast in the
stream if you know what I mean.

Rich

Nope, I'm quite sure you would just be broke!  :-)