X1000 Nemo Rev. 2 Motherboard in Production

[Iggy]

So if the A1000 (the real one) had been bog-standard IBM-AT-clone with an 68000 in the place where one would expect the 80286 and some obscure IO-chip clued to it, it would have triggered the same reactions like the A1000 with it's outstanding GFX, sound an OS had ?

It say the actual reaction would be lukewarm at best.

At the time the AT was current, I'd say yes it might have.
The 68K would have been able to run decent multitasking OS' (Xenix, OS9, Minix). The 80286 would have been far less capable.
The system you describe would have made a great server, multiple terminals could have been run from it.
Overall it would have been clearly superior to the Intel based alternative.

Further, as the Amiga advanced, that outstanding Graphics and Sound system you mention was a bottleneck to faster processors. By the end of the Amiga's life cycle RTG and other replacements for the original chipset made sense. And finally the move to PPC (since the 68060 topped out at less than 100Mhz) also made sense.

Only the OS was really worth retaining and now its a little long in the tooth.

[Iggy]

I'd like to address the pessimism that has persistently haunted this thread. The X1000 will be built. The components have already been purchased so it would be foolish not to finish the project.
Also, you all keep acting like A-eon is Trevor Dickinson's project alone. He has two partner (one an old friend of his the other Ben Hermans of Hyperion).
There will only be a limited number of X1000s. PA6T processor are now a rare commodity. So future models will probably be based on other PPCs (one possibility being the P5 processors from Freescale).

You all pontificate on missed target dates and BS about popcorn, but you fail to understand that these guys are serious. They wouldn't have invested their money in the components, and the design, if they weren't.
Don't like the system? Aren't going to buy one? Fine. There won't be that many produced and I'm sure they'll have no problem selling every one.

[Iggy]

What you have described is the typical,everyday modern PC,except its specs are way slower and has a xmos chip tacked on thats of no practical use currently.. OH! and costs what,nearly 4X as much..LOL

No, what AmigaNG was describing is the fastest PPC based system designed to run AmigaOS4. At almost twice the speed of the SAM460 with two X16 PCIe slots. Personally I'd relegate the XMOS component to a hobbyist curiousity, but the rest  of the system is a solid improvement over current AOS4 hardware and advances NG systems to a new level of performance.

[Iggy]

Pointing out the shortcomings of this is not pessimism,its just the facts ma'am!

The issue is not weather they will built it or not, i give them credit for taking on a project like this. what i dislike is the reference to the A1000 they make,trying to pull it off as something new. its not new,i would say other than the dual core processor,this is nothing more special that a PEG II.
It has nothing exciting,new or revolutionary as the A1000 did.its not the amiga savior.Either people have their blinders on or just ignore the facts.I'm all for moving forward but this is the same old regurgitated stuff in a pretty package.

Mech

Not that I've got anything against the PegII, but I'll take my Powermac over one.
Plus the X1000 operates at 2Ghz. That's about twice rthe speed of most common Pegasos G4s.
Then there's the fact that this is the first dual core PPC used in an AOS system and the fact that the board uses PCIe expansion slots.
Considerably more than a Peg II IMO.

[Iggy]

Mothballed? No the PA6T was discontinued before it had a chance to find much of a market.
And while I understand your bias (as an ARESOne owner) AROS still hasn't reached a point in its development where I feel comfortable using it.
If I had the hardware you have I'd be running Ubuntu and using UAE to run Amiga software.
I intend to keep using PPC hardware till the MorphOS team migrates elsewhere.
And I like and am impressed with what A-eon is creating.
Comparisons to X86 systems are pointless. Only comparisons to other AOS systems really matter, and in that regard this system is quite nice.

[Iggy]

So yeah, mothballed:

—Idiom
4.
in mothballs, a.
in disuse or in storage, especially with reference to standby equipment.
b.
(of ideas) dismissed as unworthy of further deliberation.

Apple purchased PA-Semi in order to use their design expertise. They had no use for a PPC processor (even one that probably had been designed with Apple in mind). After all, Apple has switched to X86 processors.

Mothballed, infers stored for future use. The PA6T was discontinued with a limited supply set aside for existing customers.

The decision to discontinue production has nothing to due with the PA6T's value, rather its is due to the fact that Apple has no desire to manufacture processors for other companies - period.

Except for IBMs G5 level processors, and their Power7 series, the PA6T still remains one of the most powerful PPC processors made.

As to "dismissed as unworthy of further deliberation", apparently it is about to be used for one final product. And I like it (and would buy one if I could).

[Iggy]

I'll bite, what do you consider "sane" pricing as far as Amigas are concerned?

I don't think its fair to expect small production runs of relatively specialized boards to be price competitive with mass merchandised PC motherboards.

Sane? Are any of us sane?

I'm actually looking at a motherboard that would be half as fast as the X1000 with a single core processor. And it would still cost hundreds more than a cheap X86.

[Iggy]

@Thread

  ODFG, Really guys.

Oregon Department of Fish and Game? I can't find a definition for that acronym/abbreviation (ODFG). What's it mean?

[Iggy]

Thanks Dandy,
All points that needed to be made. This is a new and exciting system with a lot of features that have never been tried in the Amiga market. I too am looking forward to it.

[Iggy]

There is a PegII listed on MorphZone.org
Listing states the following.

"For sale is Pegasos II system:

- AmigaOS 4.1 original CD with BOX and manuals
- PowerPC G4 @ 1133 MHz (cooling changed to better one)
- 1 GB RAM (in one single module)
- DVD-RW drive
- 80 GB hard disk
- Radeon 9250 128 MB graphics card
- ATX PSU
- Low Profile black case

Price: 475 EUR ono

Sell of the mobo + CPU card only or any other combination of above components is possible !

Pictures available per e-mail."

http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7779&forum=38

475 euros with AOS4 - a complete system (faster than a SAM460 - for less money)
Sounds like a good deal.

[Iggy]

Dual Core systems and 64 bit new in the Amiga field ? My 3 years old 3.86ghz core2duo AROS box would beg to differ, as would the 64bit version of AROS.

As much as we like to make the comparison, neither MorphOS or AROS are AmigaOS. And in my post I specifically mentioned PPCs.
Dual core and 64 bit are new features for Amiga related PPC systems.

That's why I'm looking into Freescale's new P5 processors. They're 64bit and some offer dual cores.

[Iggy]

We're not sure what the prices will be like. And they have some disadvantages when compared to the PA6T (no Altivec until the next revision, less PCIe lanes), but they do have a faster clock speed (2.2 Ghz).
But the main advantage is that the P5 is just going into production and the PA6T is out of production. A-eon has already mentioned the e5500 cored processors as a possible successor to their current processor.

[Iggy]

Yeah I know, I was midly joking in my original reply

The problem with e5500 cored CPUs is quantity. The smallest order if I remember correctly is 20 000 units. If A-eon goes and uses these processors in a hypothetical successor to the X1000 and they buy a few hundreds of them then the final product will be no cheaper then the X1000 as the CPU will again be very expensive(if I remember correctly, Trevor said that the PA6T is around 450-500 $).

I'm sure Freescale will sell them in lots of 100. But as you pointed out, the problem is price. They may not be any cheaper than the PA6T and the features do offer some drawbacks.
BTW - Having exchanged some messages with Trevor I'm inclined to believe the price range you mentioned.
So the future does give us some interesting options.

I've even discussed resurrecting the development of an MPC8610 based board with Bill Buck (due to his posted projects on the power2people website).
Although I'm not sure that sub 2.0Ghz 32bit PPCs make sense with the availability of cheap Apple G4s.

However, right now the P5010 and P5020 are some of the most powerful PPCs available.
And the future T5020 and T5040 will feature AltiVec instructions, 2.5 Ghz operation (or higher), more cores, and possibly some additional changes.
And then there's APM's Mamba and the other two unnamed processors listed on their roadmap after Titan.

[Iggy]

The key issue, IMHO, is not performance, but price/performance ratio and price in absolute terms.
The future T5020 or T5040 may indeed prove to be very fast but if they're too expensive then it's quite pointless. A X1000 succesor should be (considerably)cheaper to make sense, IMHO, and ensure bigger production run.

I wonder if A-eon could achieve better economies of scale to sell both MOS and AOS4 systems. I guess as long as ben hermans is involved that is out of the question probably.

I get the impression that Trevor Dickinson would like to do just that. But there are some hard feelings between Ben Hermans and the MorphOS development team. Also, Hermans with his ties to Hyperion has a vested interest in making sure that hardware designed to run AOS4 comes bundled with that OS.
Thats why, even if you want to run Linux on your SAM, you're forced to purchase a copy of AOS anyway (you can't buy an Acube motherboard without AOS bundled with the system).
This is another reason you don't see ports of MorphOS to Acube or A-eon motherboards. Sales of those boards for use under MorphOS would increase AOS4 sales.

[Iggy]

Can I run AmigaOS (TM) on it?

:roflmao:

That IS kind of the point, isn't it? You can't run AROS or MorphOS on an X1000, but that's not the point.
We no longer see too many blue vs red arguments (they're similar but different OS'), but why do we constantly have to hear "AROS is faster". "AROS runs on cheaper, common X86 hardware".

AROS won't run AOS4 apps (even MOS can run some AOS4 apps with a wrapper).