A new Amiga portable console with new custom chipset.

[ElPolloDiabl]

No Amiga effort would make a lot of money. AROS is the best effort because you will get a lot more people.

[Thorham]

This is so exciting! Can't wait for this to happen

[danbeaver]

This is so exciting! Can't wait for this to happen

You are right!  There is nothing more exciting than the LPGA or PBA!!!

[Linde]

I've just designed a new Amiga:



Can someone send me 20K dollars please.

Only if you pretend that it is going to have a 233 mhz 68060. Then the idea will be nice enough for me to abandon all logic and reason.

[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.

[danbeaver]

Only if you pretend that it is going to have a 233 mhz 68060. Then the idea will be nice enough for me to abandon all logic and reason.

"First I think of a computer, then I remove all reason and accountability" -- Melvin Udall

[wrath of khan]

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.

If you were serious about this then I would join you in a heartbeat.

I don't have much money though, what i have is going towards funding a commercial indy game atm. Fingers crossed I can make a profit.

I have been idly thinking of this exact idea for a while now but it needs money, pragmatism and meticulous planning, no fluff, bs or false promises, like so many other amiga projects.

I think it could be potentially more viable than say the armiga campaign at indiegogo, it looks like they won't be funded.
The armiga is not a very exciting proposition anyhow imo.

[XDelusion]

Won't MorphOS and AROS (once the Kernal and other issues are resolved) pretty much the solution for this? Once MorphOS switches over to ARM or x64 I'd say the sky is the limit...

...considering that those G5's, though Apple's most powerful PPC offering, are also the ones with the most hardware faults and short life spans.

 Likewise, if and or when AROS becomes a reletively bug free experience, I'd say that it, along with Magellan II are set to prepare furtile soil for all sorts of next gen Amiga development.

 The idea of creating all new custom hardware sounds intriquing and fun and all, but then if you consider how many open source and or free to develop for handheld game systems have been coming out from China and what have you, and then consider how small the homebrew scene is for each of them, the likely hood of all new Amiga hardware getting much more support than they currently are is nill.

 So again, I think in the long run the best we are going to get in regards to a new portable Amiga, would be MorphOS or Amithlon running on a laptop with a decent graphics and audio card. In the mean time we can all keep our fingers crossed for the FPGA offerings as they are the closest thing we are going to get to a real next gen Amiga any time soon.

[wrath of khan]

Won't MorphOS and AROS (once the Kernal and other issues are resolved) pretty much the solution for this? Once MorphOS switches over to ARM or x64 I'd say the sky is the limit...

...considering that those G5's, though Apple's most powerful PPC offering, are also the ones with the most hardware faults and short life spans.

 Likewise, if and or when AROS becomes a reletively bug free experience, I'd say that it, along with Magellan II are set to prepare furtile soil for all sorts of next gen Amiga development.

 The idea of creating all new custom hardware sounds intriquing and fun and all, but then if you consider how many open source and or free to develop for handheld game systems have been coming out from China and what have you, and then consider how small the homebrew scene is for each of them, the likely hood of all new Amiga hardware getting much more support than they currently are is nill.

 So again, I think in the long run the best we are going to get in regards to a new portable Amiga, would be MorphOS or Amithlon running on a laptop with a decent graphics and audio card. In the mean time we can all keep our fingers crossed for the FPGA offerings as they are the closest thing we are going to get to a real next gen Amiga any time soon.

Stuff running on a laptop is just stuff running on a laptop imo. meh.

Fpga amigas are an option yeah and I guess its not impossible to put one in a portable device... but its just fluffy cloud dreaming now of course...

[XDelusion]

Stuff running on a laptop is just stuff running on a laptop imo. meh.

Fpga amigas are an option yeah and I guess its not impossible to put one in a portable device... but its just fluffy cloud dreaming now of course...

 I agree, I'm all for an actual portable Amiga as opposed to some touch pad or a laptop, but alas it would seem like a pipe dream. I mean after all, if there were a ton of people out there with fingers itching to code for an Amiga based platform, they'd have been hard at work at it a long time ago. At most we'd see ports of all the current offerings that have been ported to the various Amiga OS', or ports of things that were coded specificially for the Amiga or related platforms, not much else. Same as all the other hand held game systems out there that have been hacked or are open by default.

[Duce]

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.

I've got a Moga Pro Power that I use with my Android tablets (mainly my Nexus 7, though) that works a real treat.  Even has an onboard 2200 mAh battery pack that lets you charge the tablet or phone you are using with it.

Tablet (the 7) was $180 and the controller $50 on sale.

[TheMagicM]

Am I missing the joke?

[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.
...

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.