Discussing strategy of parties involved in the amiga-market (Hardware/OS)

[spirantho]

You'd have a heck of a job getting an ARM as powerful an SOC as the ones on the PowerPC boards we have now. It's a fantastic embedded processor but it's not designed for the same systems as PowerPC.

Re the thread:
I think Olaf has every right to argue about the X1000 and OS4 in this thread. This is where it should be.
Contrary to popular belief, most OS4 users are willing to discuss OS4, their NG Amigas in a constructive way. We're not just sheep going for the brand name, we just happen to prefer OS 4 (and what's so wrong with that?). If Olaf thinks that AmigaOS is going the wrong way, then as this is a discussion forum about Amigas, what better place for it?

What OS4 users are sick of is incorrect information being thrown about the place (like incomplete drivers. For goodness' sake - so you have to use an ethernet card for now? So what? It's hardly a show-stopper! And as for the 3D graphics, you can happily use a non HD Radeon for now. It's really not an issue - ask anyone who actually owns one). We're also sick of being lumped into one group of people who apparently don't know what they're talking about, and who are obviously stupid because they didn't choose whatever flavour someone else did.

Maybe - just maybe - this can be a thread where things start to change for the better, where AmigaOS4 users can respect and be respected by the people who believe for whatever reason that AmigaOS 4 isn't for them.

Use this thread to discuss the pro's and con's of the NG Amigas, NOT threads announcing the arrival of more stock (which is emphatically not the place for such discussion).

If we can get people to respect each other's choices on this forum, more people will come back and maybe it'll stop being such a hostile place for people who happen to use AmigaOS 4.

End of preaching

(I count myself an AmigaOS 4 user for the purpose of simplifying this thread, though I use others too)

[spirantho]

@Boot_WB

Thank you. That's exactly the sort of thing we need. Healthy discussion - not bitter sniping and carping.

I completely understand what you mean about the price of the X1000, but I think you misunderstand the reason for its existence.

Yes, it exists to help AmigaOS develop by feeding it cash via sales, but that's not the real issue. The real issue is simply one of market forces.

There is a market for the X1000. This has been proven by its success, and the repeated production runs. That's what it's sold.
It also has the benefit that because it's a very powerful (for an Amiga) machine, productivity of users developing on it will go up slightly. Not a lot, but when you're recompiling MAME for the 10th time, believe me it helps!

It's unfortunate that there's not more money from sales of the X1000 going into the OS4 development, but that wasn't really the purpose.

As concerns multi-processing, there are the foundations of multi-processor code in 4.1.6, but no - not really multi-processing yet. I think there may be beta testing going on, but that's really a 4.2 thing I think.

If AmigaOS 4.2 does get released by the end of 2014, I'll quote you on this.

And again - thanks for the post.  It's good to have healthy discussions, and criticism.

[spirantho]

@ElPolloDiablo

Not sure what you mean by "hoax system"...? Do you mean the netbook? That wasn't their fault, they were caught between a rock and a hard place there (the price went up massively so if they delivered, they got yelled at and nobody would buy it because of the price - if they didn't deliver, they got yelled at and nobody could buy it, but at least they wouldn't go bankrupt).

I know what you mean about due dates - they're never accurate. That's not a Hyperion thing, that's a general industry thing. That's why these days they just say "When it's done" (sensible).

[spirantho]

I understood Trevor when he started the X1000 project (he wanted to create a super geek AmigaOS system for his personal pleasure). I still think that the time of "custom hardware" is long over but to a certain degree I understand his motivation. I do not understand his motivation for the two new systems he is now doing. One is replacing X1000 and (as I understand it) will be similar priced as the X1000. So all people who think X1000 is too expensive for them and the Acube hardware too weak will be very propably disappointed. New users from outside? No chance. All is left is the existing AmigaOS community but those who can afford (and were willing to) already own a X1000. Perhaps some will buy everything what is offered at any price but develop new hardware for such a small wealthy group? What sense make it? To offer new cheap options and a mobile solution might have made sense but this? I do not understand him... He will not stop it now because there is already money invested in the project but it is very strange to me.

My understanding is that he wants to concentrate on the higher end of the market, leaving Acube to do the lower end. I think that's a perfectly reasonable business plan.

The aim of the Cyrus is obvious - to replace the X1000. As the PA6T is so elusive and expensive, he needs a replacement - that's what the Cyrus is.

As for pricing, though - honestly nobody knows the pricing yet. We've heard vague suggestions and possibilities but when it comes down to it everybody here knows the same amount - i.e. nothing. A heck of a lot can change between now and when the Cyrus hits the market. I don't think it's fair to attack anyone on what the price might be.

[spirantho]

They probably killed Moana because they couldn't have huge profits on each unit like they do selling boards with embedded cpus (slower than the ones used 10 years ago) for premium prices. They didn't note that selling 3000 units for 100€ produces both more users and profits than selling 100 units for 3000€ (specially if you discount the real costs of producing the hardware). The difference is that if 1% of that buyers are developers you end up with 30 developers instead of only one, thus increasing the software base and the value of the platform.

I'm fairly certain they killed Moana because it would have destroyed the market for new hardware, and would have limited us to old PowerMacs.

It's as a result of their killing Moana that we have machines that support PCI-E, multi-core, USB 3 etc. (even if we can't use their potential fully yet, we have the hardware for it).
If Moana was still around, we'd all be strongly limited to small Macs instead of the good, expandable hardware we have now.

Supporting Moana would have been tying AmigaOS 4 down to the past, and that's what they're trying to get away from.

[spirantho]

Last generation of G5 include PCIe (not that it matters much) and some models 4 cpu cores.

True - but that's where it ends. Once you've got there there's nowhere to go.

As long as "new hardware" doesn't provide the same performance as nearly 10 year old hardware I don't see the point in "new hardware". If I was concerned about that I would buy a brand new Efika fron Directron but I prefer more performance.

Effectively we're playing catch-up in real performance, yes... but you've got to catch up before you can overtake something. At the current rate of progress, Cyrus will be effectively up to or surpassing the G5 (which I believe isn't very fast per MHz, and rather inefficient), which means that whatever comes next should be better than the opt-of-the-range PowerPC Mac.
As a small company, A-Eon have a large disadvantage for up-to-G5 levels (as Apple had a million times the R&D budget of A-Eon), but after that Apple stopped so it's all forward.

That would still be 10 times more than the number of x1000 sold and zero investment in hardware development costs. In case you haven't noticed yet "Amiga" word could increase the interest so you could expect more sales.

The x1000 isn't the only Amiga being sold, though - nobody expects it to outsell the low-end machines.

[spirantho]

Funny to hear that taking into account that PA*Semi cpus are dead end.

Yes, hence Cyrus using Freescale. But without the X1000 development of things like multi-processor support would be years behind what it is today.

The point of releasing AmigaOS for G5 would be gaining time to release it for x86-64.

Only if AmigaOS is going to get ported to x64 - and the jury's still out on that one.

I heard that before with x1000 PA Semi cpu and all in all it's slower than a G5 at the same frequency.

Maybe, I'm not sure to be honest. But I do know that the PA6T is more or less equivalent power-wise but does it at a fraction of the power consumption. I believe also the memory bus is faster on the PA6T but I could be wrong there.

In case you didn't notice we are talking about machines released 8-10 years ago, not even about competing with nowadays hardware

As I said - the Amiga is playing catch up to the Mac. It's not surprising when you consider the size of Apple compared to the size of A-Eon. Apple could go to Freescale and ask for 100,000 G5s. A-Eon can't. It's a whole different ball-game when you're small company.

If you want to look forward to the future the final solution is switching cpu architecture instead of relying on low end embedded cpus. Freescale has always been poor acomplishing their roadmaps.

I see where you're coming from, but switching architecture just isn't practical. For one thing, I'm not certain they legally can switch architecture, and even if they did they'd need to do a heck of a lot of work (and who's going to pay for that?) AND all the OS4 software would need to be re-compiled.

Care to explain how selling OS4 for powerbook g4 would decrease the number of x1000 sold?

Easy. There wouldn't be an X1000. If you want proof of that just look at the amount of new hardware that's been made for MorphOS since the Pegasos II.

Sams have performance similar (or worse) than antique Pegasos boards sold almost 10 years ago in our little market (and higher price, something pretty sad).

You can get a brand new Sam440 flex motherboard for 667MHz for 270 Euros, that's cheaper than the Peg II was isn't it? I believe launch price for the Peg-II was 299 Euros for the G3 (which is slower at 600MHz, but not far off the same) or 499 Euros for the G4.

You have to remember, though, that the availability of G3 and G4 CPUs back then was way higher than the availability of PPC SOC CPUs these days, so it's understandable there will be a difference.

[spirantho]

@Boot_WB

I think it sounds more like you're mistrusting of Hyperion than that you have a real problem with OS 4.

I can understand that, to be honest. From an outsider's point of view, there have been problems, to be sure.
As a developer who spends a fair amount of time reading Autodocs, though, I can see some of the changes that have been made that nobody else sees. I get to see some of the reasoning behind their choices. I get to see the progress that has been made towards things like multi-processing.

As a small business owner, I understand the problems that they face in the real world. What I see them do mirrors my own experiences.

I guess, therefore, I have a somewhat more charitable attitude towards Hyperion.

What I'm really hoping for now is that 4.2 comes out with working multi-processor support, and proper 3D support. It's quite do-able, and it's the only way to prove people wrong.

Until then, though, any amount of talk is worth nothing. But don't let that get in the way of healthy, mature discussion