Interview with Trevor Dickinson

[persia]

€200K on a board that is not only bog standard, but is also old technology and will only sell a few hundred.

[persia]

PA Semi is destined to fit into Apple's supply chain, making chips for iPod, iPads, iPhones and iWhatevers.....

I'm an Apple fanboi and I wouldn't trust Apple's word that they'll keep making chips outside of their own consumption.  I mean let's face it, Apple sells more than 350 devices in a good day in Torquay alone, they aren't likely to make decisions based on small change.  Apple's plan of controlling the processor in their devices makes it harder to clone them.  It also makes it harder to compare specs.

Off course at A-Eon's prices they could probably just buy an iPad, rip the processor out, dump the rest and still meet their price point....

[persia]

AROS needs to fork at some point into AROS classic and AROS NextGen.  That is unfortunately less likely now the Anubis will no longer be hunting chickens.... A shame really.

[persia]

Part of the Anubis problem was they took the dog head icon seriously.  There needs to be some discussion on goals and destination of what TNG means and whether there is any real interest in it.

We are at an interesting point in computer development.  iOS 4 is out and will soon be followed by Android Gingerbread (3.0).  These are mobile device OSs, but it appears that is where we are heading.  The 27 inch iMac for my wife may indeed be the last pure desktop I ever buy.  Who knows what combination of tablet and laptop will be available when we're in the market for a new computer again.  But the desktop box is becoming a shrinking niche in the computer world.  

It feels like the '80s again, whatever tablet/notebook/other device emerges from this will forever change everything.  The question for AROS is how to fit into the world that is coming.

AROS TNG was suppost to have been AROS64, but we know how well the idea of AROS64 breaking 3.1API went over.  I think a complete rewrite will have to be done which was the late Anubis-OS project.  Perhaps something new in the fall, we shall see.

[persia]

Trevor is smart enough to realise that pursuing Amiga as a "mainstream" product is a dead end.  It's a boutique product.  Custom hardware, custom software, built in small quantities for those that like things that way.  What happens after X1000?  Presumably X2000 in the same or higher price range and quantities.  Trevor gets some return on investment, a chance of be a really big fish in a really small pond, and the satisfaction of advancing his favourite hobby.  Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

[persia]

Lets see, I said:

A-Eon is treating its customers like pigs that need to be bent over etc.  

They sometimes say things about Kiwis and sheep, but pigs? ...

[persia]

£200K divided by 350 machines = £571.43 per machine.  Now let's say you want a 20% ROI, £40K divided by 350 machines = £114.29 per machine.  So you are already at £685.72 without building a single machine.  The case costs ~£100, so you are now up to close to 800 quid.  The other parts, memory, hard disk, video card probably cost another £200.  Somebody has to put it all together, give them maybe £50 per machine, plus another £50 at least for storage and other costs, so you are up to £1100 or so.  The overhead may be far more than that, so you are likely talking about a £300 to 400 motherboard.  Pricey, but within reason for such a dinky quantity...

[persia]

Again I don't follow.  Amiga is an OS.  Windows is an OS.  Mac OSX is an OS.  Linux is an OS.    You are saying if we pay $800 - $2000 for a piece of hardware OS4 is no longer is an OS?   If we only run on old Macs MorphOS is no longer an OS?

He's saying it's not a competitor, that's true.  Is that so bad that it isn't in competition?  A competition it has no chance of winning?  Niche players don't compete, they simply exist for the sake of the niche they fill.  Far better to accept this than to true to go after the millions of people who are not and never have been waiting...

[persia]

USB dongles would fall off every time you picked up the machine.  Desktop units are dead, nobody buys them anymore.

Dude, if AOS 4 was ported to IA32/AMD64 and they offered three models: a) budget b) midrange c) fancy, every AOS 4 fan boy would buy one the next day. And they wouldn't have to support every thing under the sun, just the crap they stuff in their boxes and they could solve the security problem with a cheap ass usb dongle. There would be plenty of profit and they'd suck in users from the other camps not to mention old timers and folks into esoteric stuff. The problem is, they're incompetent and running on fumes.

They've run into some money and they're blowing it on a last hurrah to net perhaps 100 users for a new platform that uses a chip that's obsolete and out of production. I look forward to seeing that ship burn and sink to the bottom of the ocean.