Amiga One X 1000 and Xena/Xorro

[spirantho]

@Megamig

I have several ideas myself of what to do with my X1000's Xena.
The only reason I'm not using is because I don't have time - but I still find it interesting.

My ideas are these:
1) A Sinclair Microdrive controller. I know of no hardware Microdrive interfaces apart from those in Spectrums and QLs. Archival and restoration of microdrives could be so much easier with an AmigaOS-based interface. As the microdrive is really just a serially connected stereo tape player, and all the decoding is done in software, the XMOS would be perfect for this sort of thing - the bits coming back off the microdrive could be decoded by the XMOS on the fly, returning the data in a sensible format.
2) A floppy disk controller. The Catweasel has proven that there's a demand for using old floppies on new machines. The I/O ports on the Xorro should easily do for connecting a floppy drive, meaning all new Amiga machines can have floppy drives built-in,  allowing you to install your Classic Amiga software via WHDLoad
3) A SID chip interface. There's nothing quite like the true analogue sound of a SID chip. Emulations are good, but never the same, any more than an MP3 is the same as a good LP. Digital sound will always be an approximation of true analogue sound.

Every now and again I come up with other daft ideas. Of course, many of you will say these are silly ideas, but for ME they'd be fun to implement and would have some kind of use. Could they be done in other ways with other connections? Maybe - but having a fast controller like this does lend itself quite well to things like these.

The only reason I've not done so is simply because I don't have time, but that doesn't stop me appreciating the potential of what's there, and I still intend to play with it more, one day.

[spirantho]

@Thorham

You've obviously never seen a microdrive cartridge.

@Megamig

To many of us, the Xena IS an attraction, even if it's not been used much yet. But putting it on the board, giving users something new to play with, and then not telling anyone is a bit daft. How will people ever make use of it if the fact that it's there is hidden?

[spirantho]

Eh wait :eek: Like a "real" SID chip so you can play music with it like chiptunes??

Uber cool music like on the C64, but only using Xena? Or do you also need Xorro and the actuall SID chip for this?

If yes on both first questions, how hard would it be to implement this?

Either, actually.
 There already is a SID emulation for the XMOS chip which I'm quite tempted to put into Vice.

But I was thinking of attaching real SID chips like the Catweasel does.

I don't think it'd be terribly hard to do, but as usual it's a matter of finding the time....

[spirantho]

@TrevorDick,

Wouldn't it be better to bring out a couple of boards for an affordable price to bring people back to the platform and to start providing support. The Amiga would of never made it at such a huge price, plus Commodore started support by a mag showing how to program the hardware and all the new commands needed to give programmers support on their product.

The Amiga in real terms was actually more expensive when it started than the X1000. It was when the A500 came out that Commodore started to become popular, but that's why we have the Sam range (although it does seem like there's not so many for sale at the moment).
The problem is that "affordable price" varies from person to person. Many people want an Amiga-compatible board that's custom designed with drivers made for just a few hundred dollars each, and that's just impossible. The Amiga market has nothing like the economies of scale that the PC market does, nor does it even have those that the Amiga did originally. The Amiga 500 was in a massive market; that market has shrunk tremendously since those days, so while Commodore could invest and build many thousands of units to recoup costs, that's impossible these days because demand is so much lower.

Next thing you need to do is get a software company to start making software for it (if you can find one that microslick hasn't already over powered by their software usage EULA, giving them the right to program microsick programs) anyhow just sitting on a computer and bringing it out is just part of the program, so now we have a new computer with an OS, and some programs. Not very attractive or interesting at this point of time, especially for the price.

AmigaKit and A-Eon are trying to do just this, but the main problem here is that people's expectations have moved. In the 1980's, a good program could be very simple (e.g. Kindwords, Deluxe Paint) Now people expect applications of the level of complexity of Microsoft Word and Photoshop before they're taken seriously. We're never going to have the massive coding teams that PC and console software makers have, there's no point in trying. What company would invest millions of dollars in development costs if they're only going to sell a thousand copies max.?

I believe the reason they gave up on the Amiga was the designers and engineers gave little room for expansion especially in the graphics and sound area, and what was made for expansion was later on to expensive or obsoleted the main boards that came out. In other words everything was specialized which later became the death bell and road block for future development.

I think the real reason they gave up on the Amiga was simply money. It became less commercially viable in about 1993, when the PC clones took over; those who continued to develop for the Amiga were pushed more and more to the sidelines until they too went to the "Dark Side".

This is a topic for another thread, though. Let's not derail this one about Xena etc.