why are sams so expensive?

[takemehomegrandma]

Why is the Sam Flex so expensive?

Economy of scale is part of the equation. Low production numbers means higher per unit costs. Alliances with other companies could perhaps have helped here (like Genesi for instance is doing). But that's only a part of the equation. The Sam is an overly complex design, and this will set the lowest possible per unit cost quite high, no matter the volume. It has many layers and external controllers, especially the notorious FPGA chip that no-one (not even Acube themselves) has come up with a use for, not even after all this time. It just sits there like some appendix, costing money and adding to the complexity. To summarize why the Sam is so expensive, everything boils down to the Acube management, and the decisions they made.

[takemehomegrandma]

Did they loose money on every Efika they sold?

Of course not!

It was so cheap!

They still are (you can still buy them brand new):

Directron in USA
Vesalia in Europe
AusPPC in Australia (he does wonderful work with casings)

(I also remember being surprised some time ago by seeing someone talking about another dealer (none Amiga related) that sold Efikas, but I can't remember their name)

So they are still available! :-)

[takemehomegrandma]

I spent less for my Eee, Mac Mini and Efika together than for a Sam System alone.

That says it all...

[takemehomegrandma]

nor do I see a purchase link.

You purchase MorphOS from within MorphOS (when online), not through a link on a website. You then receive a keyfile that is tied to that particular hardware from where you purchased it.

[takemehomegrandma]

Nonsense - look, you cannot just look at the CPU alone to quantify "power".

Of course you can, if your applications needs power, you will only get that from the CPU alone. For example, any G3 CPU will be better than the Sam/Efika class "G2" CPU's with no L2 cache, especially when running older, 68k emulated Amiga applications.

To me the efika is and always was useless

Well, the Efika isn't for anyone, *it is* rather limited in its specifications. But OTOH this is also its strength, the low price is perhaps its most prominent specification. And it was only supposed to be an evaluation/development platform for the next step in the plan, the 5121b based LimePC/"Cherrypal" devices (that unfortunately never happened).

But what do we see if we look at the Sam? We see a motherboard that costs about as much as a PowerStation (another relatively low volume machine, one can suppose), with *four* G5 cores, 4MB L2 cache, 4 Altivec units, 8 FPU units, etc, etc. This is powerful hardware. The Sam costs about as much, but is outperformed by *PDA's*! I'm sorry, but this is as useless than an old Trabant sold at the price tag of a Ferrari; only the few die hard Trabant brand followers will even consider it, effectively making this a *none option* as a future platform. It's not an option. It's utterly useless from a future-building perspective.