SAM 440 - What would owning one mean to you?

[takemehomegrandma]

SAM 440 - What would owning one mean to you?

It would mean that I would have been a lot poorer than I am by owning a $99 Efika with MorphOS 2.1, and not in any way happier.

Look, the SAM is simply overly complex, overspecced (why on earth is the FPGA there for starters), yet vastly underpowered for its price. If you are going to charge that kind of money you must go *way beyond* the SAM/Efika performance. The Efika gets away with its low performance (and specs) thanks to its low cost, the SAM doesn't.

Acube should have used a CPU with a higher level of integration, hence less external controllers, less layers, and cut away things like FPGA that serves no natural purpose. Maybe they could have reduced the price to about two-three times the Efika price tag, which could really have made a difference. Now they have a board that is "stuck in the middle", it's not a high performer (which could justify its high price) and it's not a low cost (which could justify its low performance).

[takemehomegrandma]

Dwyloc wrote:

I looked at purchasing one and a copy of morphos when morphos 2.0 was released but it was going to workout almost as expensive as the SAM and OS4 is now

That my friend, is very hard to believe! The Efika motherboard is very small and very light weight, and shipment from Directron.com to Europe can't possibly be an issue. Maybe if you fly over to the states to pick it up yourself it will, but... ;-)

[takemehomegrandma]

Hans_ wrote:

(why on earth is the FPGA there for starters)

For industrial customers.

Ah, those "industrial customers" again. I wonder who they are...? Are there any at all? I somehow doubt it in this case. There are countless of boards and PCI cards with FPGA's out there, each with various customizations for various needs. The Sam clearly has desktop ambitions (a standard desktop form factor, all controllers and connectivity options you would expect from a desktop motherboard (unfortunately they all (including GFX) sits on the same PCI bus)), and it has a premium desktop price tag, but a CPU performance that doesn't fit that picture at all.

A product *must* be a response to some kind of *market demand*, and the specifications *must* be set from that. I have a strong feeling that Acube started off at the wrong end by simply designing a set of specifications they themselves thought would be "cool", and because of that missing the "small detail" of market demand. Which simply isn't there.

There are no "industrial customers", that's nothing more than a reflex response that's being thrown around that doesn't mean anything. They will perhaps sell some 50-150 boards to OS4 nerds ready to pay premium price simply because it's the only way of running OS4, and because it has a similar component ("The Incredible FPGA") that someone made a MiniMig of and Jens Schönfeld made something else of (ie some kind of geek cool factor). And that's not too bad actually. But I can't see who else on earth would buy it?

If they can find enough industrial customers then they might be able lower the cost.

Well, if you start buying components by tens of thousands, you can of course start bargaining on the prices. However, economy of scale can only reach that far, and a high volume does not make the board less complex, use less components, less layers, etc. And it will never come close to quantities that matters anyway...

Besides that, it could prove to be a good toy for those who know how to use it.

A toy? Could?

I'm sorry, but if there is no market need, if there is no purpose, if no-one (including Acube) had a clear view of what to do with it, then it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Your pot belly may be cute and sexy *in your own* eyes, but in most cases it's only an extra burden that serves no purpose, and if it only scares the chicks away from you because there are options out there that doesn't suffer from this "extra weight", then you would be much better off without it.

If they could have, they probably would have. In fact, the SAM 440 flex is probably going to be cheaper.

Yes probably.

But I can't understand why they persist in using the 440 in a *desktop design*? It's misplaced in that context! I could understand their CPU of choice if it had been a more customized device for a special purpose, some kind of hand held thing, an embedded product of some kind. But even then it wouldn't compete with the 5121e in any aspect, so...

For a desktop design, I wish they would consider making a SAM 8640 (single core) instead, using an AMD SB750 southbridge. It would be a quite nice machine:

- One (or two) e600 core with altivec running at 1.25GHz
- PCI Express x16 slot for graphic cards (8 lanes connected)
- 4 Gigabit Ethernet connectors
- Up to 6 SATA 3.0 Gbit/s hard disk drives, with RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1 support
- eSATA
- 1 IDE channel for HyperFlash module
- Up to 14 USB ports (12 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 1.1)
- HD Audio
- Infrared receiver/transmitter port compatible with IrDA standards
- Super I/O (not really needed with that many USB's?)

Make it as a Micro-ATX motherboard. A perfect little two-chip developer desktop! :-)

With the dual core version, you could even have two operating systems running at the same time! :-)

Or why not a SAM 8610, with the same south bridge and form factor as above?

Speaking of that, have you seen this one?



It's the "Redtail" board from some Japanese developer. Look at it, it's about the size of an Efika, and the 8610 is probably *the fastest* 32-bit PPC CPU ever made.

I'd *happily* pay the SAM's price for that one! ;-)

[takemehomegrandma]

zyphoid wrote:

Directron.com doesn't ship overseas

That's not what I heard, I have read posts from several people in Europe who ordered from them. However, you can't do it through the webshop. You will have to mail them directly and agree on shipping and payment options.
 

as for the efika...it doesn't play or burn to dvd!!, or cd's for that matter!!

Indeed it's correct that the Efika has lower specs than the Sam and it's not suitable for "desktop use" for everyone, no-one has ever claimed different.

The main feature of the Efika is its low price. And that's not a bad feature! Some people are obviously happy to live with the limited specs and none existent expansion options beyond what comes through USB1.1 as long as they don't have to take a second mortage on the house just to try out MorphOS 2.1. But of course it doesn't suit everyone.

sam is also more powerful!

Marginally more powerful perhaps (I haven't seen any real life comparisons), but it still doesn't qualify to be called *powerful*. The 440 and the 5200B is in the same class of CPU's...

[takemehomegrandma]

Hans_ wrote:

No industrial customers? How the heck would you know? Are you privy to ACube's business dealings? Their business plan? No, you're not. So you really don't know.

Outside the Amiga community there is this thing called "competition", where a great deal of options are available at very attractive prices from many, many producers. That any "industrial customer" (whatever that is) would choose the Sam in its current shape, form and price over anything (whatever) else that is available from everywhere is highly unlikely.
 

... They will perhaps sell some 50-150 boards to OS4 nerds ready to pay premium price simply because it's the only way of running OS4, and because it has a similar component ("The Incredible FPGA") that someone made a MiniMig of and Jens Schönfeld made something else of (ie some kind of geek cool factor). ...

And now you're just being directly insulting and demeaning to the whole OS4 community. So typical.

No I'm not. Everyone knows that the Sam is the only option for any new user to get a OS4.1 system, and obviously some (but not that many) are ready to pay the very high price in order to do that. And not a single one has publicly expressed any critical thoughts about the FPGA, despite no-one (not even Acube) has a use for it, and it only sitting there like a cancer bump that has brought nothing to the board but a high price (hence preventing people from getting on board). Rather the opposite, in online discussions you sense some admiration for FPGA's in general and the various and completely unrelated "Amiga in a FPGA" projects in particular.  

Besides that, it could prove to be a good toy for those who know how to use it.

A toy? Could?

I'm sorry, but if there is no market need, if there is no purpose, if no-one (including Acube) had a clear view of what to do with it, then it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

What I mean, is that it's up to the creativity of developers.

And what could that be in your opinion, that a "real" controller of the same sort couldn't do better and cheaper? I mean, until anyone figure out what the h-ll the thing could be used for, I still think it shouldn't be there. Specifications must come from a real market demand, you can't do it the other way around. They should have put it on an optional PCI daughter card or whatever.

Once again, you are assuming that they spent all that time and money for just a few hundred sales to Amiga enthusiasts.

Everything Acube is and have done is about Amiga. They (both Acube and Hyperion) has made it no secret that this is "the new Amiga", they use the Frieden's "OS4 firmware", they have been granted the exclusive distribution rights of OS4, 50% of their front web page is a big OS4.1 ad, promotion materials they released has looked identical to the OS4 visual style (colors, gradients, fonts, etc). The Sam is made by Amigans, for Amigans, and that is no secret. Unfortunately, there aren't many left who is prepared to pay that price for that kind of hardware, and I still can't imagine who on earth outside the Amiga community would even take a Sam in consideration, it would drown in the competition. This "industrial customers" was a term that Alan Redhouse used frequently as well when he was pushing the "A1". Maybe this kind of talk works when speaking to your bank for financing (if your banker is ignorant enough), but in reality (the one outside the rose tinted fuzzy Amiga reality) I don't think that neither Alan Redhouse nor Acube has sold many boards to "industrial customers". Amiga nerds willing to pay anything for anything labeled "Amiga" is a completely different matter. No market rules apply, it's a cult monopoly of loyal brand followers.

But I can't understand why they persist in using the 440 in a *desktop design*? It's misplaced in that context!

Firstly, you're the one asserting that it's a desktop design.

But open your eyes and look at it. It's a board made in a desktop standard form factor, having the same standard desktop connectors and expandability options, using the same standard PC controllers that you find in any standard Dell PC. But the Dell PC would be at a fraction of the cost and have ten times the performance.

It's a Desktop Amiga. That's what it is.

I could understand their CPU of choice if it had been a more customized device for a special purpose, some kind of hand held thing, an embedded product of some kind. But even then it wouldn't compete with the 5121e in any aspect, so...

Have you ever designed a motherboard?

The issue isn't about motherboard designing, it's about business development.

If you're already grumbling about the price of the SAM 440ep, then what exactly would you expect if a more expensive, more complex, chip were used?

In volume, I have heard that the 5200B costs some $10-$15. The 5121e costs about the same but offers so much more. It's an entire multi core computer in one single chip, with about the same (or better) performance as the Sam 440 CPU. It has on board display controller capable of HDTV 720 resolution, on board 3D GPU, a separate 200MHz RISC core for audio acceleration (or whatever you decide to use it for), PCI 2.3, USB2, SATA, PATA, etc, etc.

The Bill of Materials for these 5121e based laptops is *below $100*, and in addition to the 5121e SoC chip they have a second chip connected to it on the PCI bus for WiFi and Bluetooth, just like LimePC concepts and the Cherrypal.

This is the power of high integration and low complexity.

Also, if what I have read is correct, the CPUs that you suggest that they should use were introduced in 2007, after ACube started working on the SAM motherboard.

While the 8610 is a new chip, the 8640(D) is merely a performance and price reduced version of the 8641(D) that has been here for a long time, but that isn't the point really. My point is that (as far as I understand) Acube is now working on "a second generation motherboard", still using the same philosophy and still using a 440 family chip. My question was why? The 8610 is probably more expensive than a 440, but I am confident that a motherboard based on this CPU and one or two extra chips (like the Redtail motherboard above) would end up being cheaper in total than a Sam. And even if it won't be cheaper, it would have performance and specifications to justify the price better.

[takemehomegrandma]

@darksun9210

Yeah, and just to be clear I ensure you that I have only the deepest respect for Acube for their effort (maybe it doesn't look that way in my posts above). We have seen many HW attempts in the past, of which 99% crashed and burned before anything at all could materialize. It takes *a lot* to go all the way like they have done. Criticism isn't nay-saying. I expressed the same views a long time ago when I first learned about the Sam specs (long before anything tangible even existed). It's brave to make PPC desktops for niche markets! I just wish that Acube would re-think and either go for high spec&performance design at a higher price (read: current price), or low spec&performance design at a lower price. It can be done, as I tried to show above.

[takemehomegrandma]

@A1260

Oh boy, aren't you a blast from the past?  :roll:

[takemehomegrandma]

Metalguy66 wrote:

But some of us (who are interested in the AMIGA in a desktop role) are not willing to pay 6 times what a modern PC motherboard costs for a board that has roughly 1/10th the performance.

The 8610 is a good performer, and you could use it to make a really good desktop class Amiga machine with really good price/performance ratio. Look at this youtube video, what you see is the 8610 running Linux and playing a divx movie at full 1080p. There is an interesting discussion about it here.

However, no suitable 8610 based motherboard exists, hence no "Amigoid" OS is running on it yet, but hey, MorphOS is coming for the MacMini G4, which is a well tried, cheap and well spread second hand hardware you could easily buy! Click on the image in this thread for details, or look at this mpeg video! And with MorphOS it's a really good performer too (1080p h.264 video replay, wow!) ;-)

[takemehomegrandma]

Amithony wrote:

Imagine getting the formula right enough to re-spark an Amiga resurgence!

Jahc likes to call his OS of choice AmigaOS4.1, and so does Hyperion. However, Amiga Inc (the IP owner) doesn't agree, and that's why they have submitted the lawsuit for trade mark infringement. Let's see what comes out of this law suit before speaking too much about Amiga resurgence based on Hyperion's OS, chances are you only will be disappointed if you invest too much hope in this one...

[takemehomegrandma]

@cicero790

AROS also run on PPC, the Sam is already supported and the Efika support is progressing nicely as well! :-)

[takemehomegrandma]

@KimmoK

Efika needs a display card (PCI or AGP card on a riser) which power/performance ratio is hardly any better than ATI M9.

With an AGP slot you have the *option to choose* based on your own preferences regarding price/performance. Maybe you prefer low cost in favor of 3D performance for instance?

And more important than the GPU version (after all, no Sam/Efika is going to be used as a PS3 replacement any day soon anyway ;-)) is the amount of memory! At least in the case of MorphOS, thanks to its "Layers 3D" functionality, you know where the GUI is handled by the 3D GPU (somewhat like in MacOS X and Windows Vista). This consumes a lot of GFX card memory. I've heard that 64MB is a *bare minimum* (and *not* recommended), 128MB is better, and 256MB "let you use your machine without worrying about the mem consumed by l3d" (to quote jacadcaps).

Efika needs 2.5" hard drive (they are very slow on all laptops that I've used).

That's probably because you have only used slow laptops with low RAM and bulky OS's which makes heavy use of the HDD (for virtual memory and other stuff). As you know, this is not the case on any Amiga environment, where the system boots in an instant, programs are tiny and loads in a flash, etc. And on the Efika the HDD will not be the weakest link in the IDE chain anyway, so...

SAM has two times more RAM, 4*SATA IDE interface

Sure, the Sam has more desktop alike controllers, which undoubtedly is much appreciated by people wanting to use it as a desktop. At the penalty of an insane price, of course...

FREE PCI slot

...that shares the same PCI bus as all the other controllers (including the GPU).

a lot faster CPU

No, definitely not a lot. To be honest, I haven't seen any real life comparisons, but given the higher clock frequency I'd say it's probably a bit faster, although you can certainly *not* call the Sam CPU *fast* in any way, especially not for serious desktop usage. A lean OS like the "amigoid" OS's makes the experience pleasurable on low power CPU's as long as you're not doing anything particular with it, but as soon as you start doing *demanding stuff* you should know the difference. I'd say that both Sam's and the Efika's CPU can be categorized in the same class of "embedded" CPU's.

DVI out

DVI out has been on every graphics card for ages, haven't it?

So, IMHO SAM is worth the "extra" price.

That's great then! :-)

(I will order MOS board someday, I just desided to go one at a time.) :-)

Maybe the MacMini version of MorphOS is ready when you are ready for MorphOS? Then you could get the fastest Amiga ever (1.58GHz 7447A G4), at a really low cost! :-)

Sure, also I spotted the redtail board in bbrv's web blog. It looks interesting for a desktop/laptop/kiosk "Amiga". Perhaps MOS and/or AOS4 will be available for something like that someday,

The 8610 is the latest and definitely one of the fastest e600 based CPU's. Its integrated display controller and north bridge functionality makes it possible to build a system with a very good bang for the buck ratio.

now when they are not tied to any single HW manufacturer.

Well, that remains to be seen (in both cases!) ;-)

[takemehomegrandma]

TiredOLife wrote:

takemehomegrandma wrote:

Amithony wrote:

Imagine getting the formula right enough to re-spark an Amiga resurgence!

Jahc likes to call his OS of choice AmigaOS4.1, and so does Hyperion. However, Amiga Inc (the IP owner) doesn't agree, and that's why they have submitted the lawsuit for trade mark infringement. Let's see what comes out of this law suit before speaking too much about Amiga resurgence based on Hyperion's OS, chances are you only will be disappointed if you invest too much hope in this one...

That's a pretty bold statement.

Not a bold statement in any way (other than that I wrote Amiga in bold ;-)).

Hyperion are under the impression they are the IP owner.

If there was no dispute there would be no court case.

They can be under whatever "impression" they like, it's not like it's their "impression" that makes facts!

I could be "under the impression" that I own the right to use the name "Windows Vista" for my own products. It would certainly boost my sales. And when Microsoft sue me for trade mark infringement, I could simply call that "a dispute, that's why there is a court case", call *you* in to call MS lawsuit "a bold statement" and simply continue to sell my products under the name "Windows Vista". For a while at least. Until the court proclaim its verdict.

I like this Hyperion quote (Ben Hermans):

"The failure of Amiga Inc and the MorphOS team to come to terms is in part due to the fact that Amiga wants to assert their ownership and intellectual property rights over the Amiga OS (for which they paid 4.5 M USD) whilst the MorphOS team happily continues to refute those claims"

Now replace all instances of "the MorphOS team" with "Hyperion" and read it again for some laughs! ;-)

Can't see where the disappointment is coming from.
One you have bought Sam and OS4.1, nobody from Amiga Inc will be round your house to take it back (Should they win)

The future would disappear in an instant, the OS development would stop, all interest would go away, and with that all SW development, etc. It could very well turn out to be a still born project. I'm *not* saying it will, but the risk is clearly there until all legal issues are settled. That's where the disappointment could come from. And no, there is nothing bold about that statement.

As for Sam and 4.1, nobody who has bought the combination has been disappointed with it as far as I am aware.

I bet!

Anyone who thinks it isn't an Amiga, my advice is to try it for yourself.

If it looks like an elephant, sounds like an elephant and acts like an elephant, then chances are it is an elephant.

Exactly, and we have AROS/x86/PPC elephants, we have OS4/A1/Classic/Sam elephants, we have MorphOS/Pegasos/Efika/Classic/MacMini(soon ;-)) elephants, and of course *the elephants* (the A1000-A4000/1.0-3.9 elephants)! ;-)

[takemehomegrandma]

Varthall wrote:
@takemehomegrandma

Instead of making assumptions, why don't you just ask ACube (publically or in private form) how is Sam selling in the industrial market?

You just did. As has other done in other threads on other forums. Many times.

So I guess we just sit down and wait for Acube to give us some exact and correct numbers now?

Ah, come on! Why on earth should they comment on that to any outsider, be it in public or in private? Of course they won't! And they shouldn't!

[takemehomegrandma]

Amithony wrote:

zylesea wrote:
Once used to the ppc speed suddenly I didn't felt comfortable on 68k anymore.
Or to put in a nutshell: You'll be amazed by the speed of a ppc Amiga.

I suspect this will be the case when i get my sam440.

You should definitely notice difference from a 68k system, shame otherwise!

But with "You'll be amazed by the speed of a PPC Amiga" maybe zylesea meant a G4 with Altivec?

Who would be the best supplier I wonder?

Many people seems to be very happy with Amigakit.com, so why don't you try that one out? :-)

[takemehomegrandma]

Gebrochen wrote:

haha, well, I am extremely glad my sam440ep is well, and am quiet content with os4.1, all I need to do, is set it up a bit better with software and so forth as soon as I get that psu sunday.

Well, setting up the software and create your own personalized system is part of the fun! This is how it has always been done, a system booted from a standard 3.1 floppy wasn't really useful, right? ;-) This I think is the beauty of the Amiga; no system is identical to another, everything is up to the user to configure and customize according to his/her needs. It's the same with MorphOS. Have fun! :-)