A new Amiga portable console with new custom chipset.

[agami]

Back before the crash in 2000 my brother and I were talking to a bunch of people in various industries including Fleecy over at Amiga Inc. about a portable Amiga games console, kind of like a SD32. This was just before the GameBoy Advance was released but it was announced and expected soon.

Amiga Inc. were open to it and were very reasonable on the licensing. The highest cost component at the time was the screen as we wanted to be compatible with the existing games library and unlike Nintendo and Sega we could not buy the cheapest screen and tell developers to work with it. Also, Amiga games were not designed to be displayed on a 2 inch screen so we played around with different sizes and 4 inch 4:3 LCD from SHARP was the only screen that fit the bill as there were no lines dropped when displaying the various games resolutions.

The second challenge was the keyboard mapping system. Amiga joysticks had only a single (logical) button. Many games would use other keyboard keys for added functionality, stats, maps, views, etc. and they did not use the same sets of keys. Making the key-mapping function work without needing to modify the original game is what we aimed for as most of the developers were no longer contactable.

The BoXeR style compiling of all the custom chips + 030 into a single low-power ASIC was the third challenge. The low-power was more of a challenge than the single-IC part.

Today I'd imagine most of the tech has come down in price and emulation has improved drastically so $20k could fund the prototype. Though if a single developer worked on the software bits full time it would take 12 months to get all those things done and what's left over from the $20k isn't going to be enough.

Its a nice dream and more than that it is a product that would sell if it could be developed (read: funded). It would require more like $250k to get it to production. The unit price should not be more than $299 and you'd start making a profit after selling 2,500 units.

[agami]

$250k is seriously not a lot of money - especially if it's coming from and driven by someone that's enthusiastic and believes in the potential of the Amiga platform as a viable niche contender to mainstream OSs.

I guess to some extent Trevor Dickinson fits that bill- I'm sure he took on some financial risk setting up A-Eon and commissioning production of the X1000.

Yes, in the scheme of things $250k is not a lot but it is nevertheless a gamble.

Trevor is indeed one of those individuals. The core issue with his approach, and I have stated this before, is that he was too conservative. A product like the X1000 needed more. Products are like fire, and money is like oxygen; You don't feed it enough oxygen and you get a slow burn. Though I'm sure if he had the millions to spare he would have put them in and we would have seen a more rapid development of hardware and software.

If I had a spare $250k I would certainly do it. I'd use Kickstarter to make sure there's enough interest; Reduces the risk somewhat.

[agami]

Honestly, a decent tablet (not a cheap $79 one still running Gingerbread) running an Amiga emulator in combination with a good controller setup (like the Moga controllers) is pretty hard to beat.
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Yes, today the UAE emulation is really good and mobile SoC parts are fairly inexpensive and high performing. Though the key would be to have the controller and the screen as a single unit. I would make it more like a PS Vita. I especially like the rear touchpad as it could make it possible to play mouse-driven Amiga games. Touchscreen support in Rev. 2.

But unlike the PS Vita the device could not be sold at a loss or with cut-throat margins whilst making profit on the games. One must assume that for the large part the users will be using "freely" available adf or RP9 files. One would need to make the device itself profitable.

The device would also need to have a secondary and tertiary use; the primary use being Portable Amiga Games Console. In 2000 having a camera in it was out of the question, but in 2014 it is almost a given. And web browsing, email, IM, and twitter are pretty much a given.

I wouldn't bother with native 68k + AGA silicon. UAE running on Atom or ARM would be fine; Parts are readily available and it would make it easier to get the secondary and tertiary uses. Plus, getting someone to write the key-mapping application for ARM or x86 is a lot easier than on 68k.

One of the issues is that about 99% of all LCD screens rolling of the production lines around the world are 16:10 or 16:9*, Amiga games are designed for 4:3 so what's to be done with the extra pixels? Is it just black bands on the sides of the Android emulator?

*Currently Apple still gets 4:3 parts for their iPad mini, iPad and iPad Air but the supply chain economic pressure will soon make them move to a 16:10.