I don't get it.

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Comparing is fine, ranting and flaming away over something you wouldn't have bought even if it came complete with "sex and free beer" seems a bit stupid.

This is sport for some people at this point.  And some people just love conflict.  And having an old nemisis involved in the project like Ben Hermans is just going to be irresistible to some as well.

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What I don't get the exclusivity some desire, especially but not exclusively on the red side. Some seem to think an ultra high price is a right of passage and keeping an ultra low user base is somehow a good thing. EVERYONE should want to grow all the communities, not run off prospective users.

Lets not forget though that even the SAM 440 was called too expensive by most.  Certain hobbies have a certain unavoidable cost of entry.  When I paid $500 for a used PegII (G3 mind you) intrinsically it was not worth $500.  But it was worth it to me for my hobby.  AOS has chosen the custom PPC hardware path, you can only grow that community with folks who have decent disposable incomes.  Meanwhile AROS does everything it can to be inclusive, and tons of people want no part of them because they follow the brand name slavishly.  And hence the ever present conflict.

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They watched, "Field of Dreams" and adopted it as their business model.  I have no clue on what they are thinking by introducing a high end system that the OS can't fully use in the worst economy in a generation, maybe in two generations.   Throw in a cult attitude plus very weak marketing capabilities and you have a makings of a great full blown disaster.

But lets be real Dammy, you LOVE that they have lined themselves up for this disaster.  Its not enough for you that they fail on their own.  You enjoy helping them along.

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Remember, its not a hobby machine. They call it a developer machine. I guess they hope someone forks out the money and developes some terrific software to drive sales.

I don't think they ever called it a developer machine.  Dammy spread that one around the forums.  A-EON then stepped in it big time by having the beta-tester program which mucked up things more.  There seems to be unanswered questions about whether these rev 2 boards will be the same boards sold to end users post-beta or not.

The better tag might be "beta boards" unless A-EON promises that the beta will not lead to a rev 3 board and that its instead all about software debugging.

Calling the machine a developer machine is plain silly anyway.  Any developer for AOS 4.x who is acting like a developer and not at the same time an AOS 4.x fan willing to spend anything is not going to spend this kind of money on a developer platform.  This is a hobby OS with a user base measured (at best) in the low thousands.  A true developer board for AOS 4.x should be more like a Beagle board class machine.

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No seriously, if MOS became AmigaOS we could all be enjoying AmigaOS on cheap second hand Macs now, maybe thats why there is a war in the Amiga world because growing the userbase is easier with 100 dollar hardware than 2000 dollar hardware.

Whats wrong with enjoying MorphOS on cheap second-hands Macs now?  MorphOS does not have the Amiga name, so what?

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..hey, that fly is drinking my beer. BBIAB.

That reminds me of a great joke:

"One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints. The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust. The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer, and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened. The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink, held it out over the beer, and started yelling, "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT YOU BASTARD!!!!"