Teron PX ATX PowerPC motherboard

[Themamboman]

Kronos wrote:
@weiseb

That board is still running through Eyetech who have zero interest
in showing the pricegap between both boards (and want to make some
extra  $$$$$).

I don't want to be a trouble maker, but I'm a little weary of Eyetech.  About 6-7 years ago, I found a guy who made a custom hardware and software package for the Amiga to utilize the Connectix Quickcam, black and white version when I lived in Ft Lauderdale, Florida (he lived in the same town).

He wrote the software himself and uploaded a demo to aminet:

http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet/biz/demo/QuickCam.readme

and designed and hand constructed the hardware himself:

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/quickcam.html

He was contacted by an Eyetech representative at the time about a distribution deal, so he sent a custom cable and software to them for them to test.  At the time, the only other solution was being worked on by a group called ACQVid or something like that, and I don't think they ever shipped it.

Anyway, he told me later, that Eyetech started advertising his cable and software for sale on their UK webpage, and they had never contacted him or paid him for his design.  They just started building cables and copying his software.  I'm not sure if they even printed a manual, but he said that they basically stole his product.

Tony was just a single, mid-20's immigrant with no family, working low-paying jobs and making his amiga products because he loved the platform.  He had no money for a lawyer (let alone an international one).  I know he complained to them several times by email, with little result.

I'm not indicting the whole crew at Eyetech, but at least one person there was dishonest at that time.  I'm personally not going to give them any money because of that.

BTW, I used to host a website advertising the his software and hardware.  The page was designed by the guy who used to run the Almost Daily Fishwrap which was a very good amiga news site, if you remember that one.

[MarkTime]

@Downix,

first the good, I think it is good that the board isn't another exact PX clone, we already have those, so this represents a new choice.

The micro-atx factor is going to be good for people who need it, firewire is nice to have included already, if you need it.

Thats good, if people need it and some do, but not me, so my purchase isn't impacted a whole lot by those things.  

Here is what I think about price/performance specs...its the most important thing to me, but not necessarily this market....we are not so price sensitive, but we are VERY performance sensitive.

Apple's best selling models are not their sub-1000 models...yes they go for that market, but their best iMac, is also their most expensive iMac.  

The same goes true for the remaining Amiga market, we are hard core zealots, we don't want to get ripped off a-la eyetech, but the fact that so many people pre-ordered a 880 dollar board, shows that we are willing to spend the $$$, but for the fastest board around.

I personally want the cheapest board...but I think far more people actually don't mind the 880 price, heck they'll spend a 1,000 dollars....just give them the fastest/sexiest machine around.

compete on the high end/not the low end...thats were this market is...where the mark up is...its a win win situation.

I think its a mistake to try and convince people that the G3 is fine.....

my 1 1/2 cents

[Darth_X]

Greetings Herewegoagain,

Works great if you are a midget with tiny hands to work in that tight cramped up case with hardly any way to get air flow through it.

You are assuming that there will be a lot of HEAT coming off this motherboard, similar to what one would expect from a PC with AMD processor. However, G3 CPUs run a lot cooler, you don't need a giant heat sink and possibly could get away without a fan in some cases.  ;-)

The PC I'm using has a Celeron 400(Mhz), which has a tiny heatsink & fan.. it almost doesn't need the fan if I had a bigger heatsink (maybe with a peltier junction cooler).

Nice one....nobody can build a quality product but DCE. Thanks for the laugh.

*shrugs* DCE are local to bplan (germany area) subcontractor. Of course, I'd like to see the Pegasos design licensed to other subcontractors around the world. But for now, it makes sense to go with the local subcontractor while bulding the market.
 

MAI rushed out the Articia Northbridge without properly testing it. Same with the Teron motherboard.. it too was rushed out. And mass produced using cheaper components. Example: The southbridge is older.. therefore it is also cheaper.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.. Wrong! You are not keeping up with the news Downix. No AMR slot on the PX boards. (which btw are not only for modems)

There is an AMR  slot in MAI docs:  

http://www.mai.com/products/BRV852R2.0.pdf
 :-D
 

Oh yeah, last time I needed firewire was .... hmmmm.............. never! Don't need it, as most people will not. If they do, just pop in a PCI card. They are not that expensive for heavens sake.

I have lots of uses for firewire. In one of my projects, the built-in firewire is going to be very useful.

Firewire is great for FAST external hard drives (good to have an external drive for backups). And there's some interesting things happening with firewire and linux (do a search for 'linux firewire').

Check these websites out:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/search/search.html?category=all&words=firewire

http://www.firewiremax.com/
http://www.firewirestuff.com/
http://www.1394ta.org/
http://www.firewiredirect.com/
http://fwdepot.com/thestore/default.php

Thanks  :-D

[downix]

Herewegoagain wrote:

The Teron board is a full ATX, Pegasos is a smaller Micro-ATX.

Works great if you are a midget with tiny hands to work in that tight cramped up case with hardly any way to get air flow through it.

Give me a full size board and case anyday.

I happen to like the smaller board, as I have a full-sized ATX motherboard in the guise of my Athlon and it's size is causing problemswith poor airflow, causing overheating being the biggest problem.

The teron uses the VIA 686B southbridge, which has known DMA bugs that are well documented. The Pegasos uses the 8231 southbridge, which is a more modern chipset. In fact, VIA is listing the VT6x series of southbridges as end-of-life when I checked their website. While the VT82xx series has new versions still arriving.

Well this has been debated to death, and I believe it has been pointed out in other threads that the 8231 has some issues of it's own....So let's not call the kettle black yet.

I didn't bring up the issues, I brought up lifespan.  The chip series that the 686B was a part of is end-of-life.  This means eventually they'll run out of parts, and a whole new board will have to be engineered.  The 8231 has a drop-in replacement already availible, the 8235, which means supplies of either the original, or a replacement, will not be an issue in the future.

then there's the quality of construction. The Teron board is using every approach to lower the cost of the design. The Pegasos uses higher-quality connectors in almost all cases. Means the Pegasos will last longer in many situations.

 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:   Nice one....nobody can build a quality product but DCE.  Thanks for the laugh.

Did I mention DCE?  I mentioned the components used, not the manufacturer.

Also, the positioning of the components on the motherboard can be an issue. The Teron board has plug interfaces at the end of where the PCI slots run, which means if you get a long card, you can't use the hard drives, for example. (before you get into it, I have a pro-studio AGP card here that is from the backplane to the front-brackets in my case, so it does actually occur)

Come on now.  Is it the use of a long PCI card or AGP card that would be a problem.  Everyone with a full length PCI or AGP card raise your hand?  Anyway, it's not like the IDE connectors stick up higher than the actual PCI connector (which cards don't usually go below anyay).  Ok, move the PCI card to another slot then... how about that.  

And if it's an AGP card?

Of course, the Teron does support that funky new winmodem port.....

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.. Wrong!  You are not keeping up with the news Downix.  No AMR slot on the PX boards.  (which btw are not only for modems)

I went by the picture of the CX board, as that's the only picture on the website.  I assumed that the slot positionings would remain the same.  If there is a change in the availibility of the AMR, that is my mistake made on lack of data to the contrary.

And if you noticed, I gave that as a plus, not a minus.  The lack of such a slot has hurt my Athlon here, due to lack of ports for a newer modem.

There are some other segments of the Pegasos as well, such as built-in sound, that lend it to being a nicer board.

But it can come down to personal needs and tastes.  I happen to like smaller systems.  I happen to like the locking-plugs used on the Pegasos.  I happen to enjoy the ease of access to the various parts of the system.  And, frankly, I like how the Pegasos looks vs the Teron boards.  Might sound silly, but asthetics do count.

[DaveP]

@themamboman

If you didnt want to cause trouble you wouldnt have posted
that. Lets have hard evidence please rather than just
more rumour mongering.

What you are saying might be true or not, but because
you clearly cant substantiate it beyond hearsay in my
opinion you should have clicked CANCEL not SUBMIT.

[downix]

@MarkTime

Interesting points, and ones I'm not entirely deaf to either.

As for the G3 being fine, I actually like the G3 more than the G4.  I see more potential for performance in the G3's architecture.  So I am biased here.  However, G4 boards will be out soon enough, and then we can start comparing these beasts head-to-head-to-head.

[zacman]

>What you are saying might be true or not, but
>because you clearly cant substantiate it beyond
>hearsay in my opinion you should have clicked
>CANCEL not SUBMIT.

You mean like certain companies that are officially
saying that some OS is illegal without having any
proof?

[DaveP]

EXACTLY LIKE THAT!  

[Themamboman]

DaveP wrote:
@themamboman

If you didnt want to cause trouble you wouldnt have posted
that. Lets have hard evidence please rather than just
more rumour mongering.

Just thought I would put out a tiny little warning.  I did say that it appeared to be only one person, many years ago.  

It was more than rumor though.  They guy did invent the item.  I was one of the first orders.  I used it.  Others bought it and used it.  And Eyetech did show an identical item on their webpage after he told me that they took it.

The only thing that could have invalidated this was if he was an outright liar.  I had his invention a couple of months before Eyetech showed it for sale.  He excitedly told me in an email that they were reviewing it for possible resale before they started advertising it for sale.  

His was the only working quickcam adapter for the Amiga, so the one they were going to resell was his design.  I can't think of any reason that he would start claiming that they didn't pay him and just started selling clones of his stuff, since lying about it would damage any real deal that they may have had.

Just thought it would be helpful to advise a bit of caution.  Perhaps everyone there now is honest, but at one time, at least one person, who made a good product, claimed they took it from him without compensation.

[Ferry]

Totally offtopic, but...   }:¬)
 

zacman wrote:
>What you are saying might be true or not, but
>because you clearly cant substantiate it beyond
>hearsay in my opinion you should have clicked
>CANCEL not SUBMIT.

You mean like certain companies that are officially
saying that some OS is illegal without having any
proof?

You mean like certain Governments wanting to start a war without having any proof? They should click CANCEL too...

@themamboman

It was more than rumor though. They guy did invent the item. I was one of the first orders. I used it. Others bought it and used it. And Eyetech did show an identical item on their webpage after he told me that they took it.

The only thing that could have invalidated this was if he was an outright liar. I had his invention a couple of months before Eyetech showed it for sale. He excitedly told me in an email that they were reviewing it for possible resale before they started advertising it for sale.

Well someone is certainly lying.

We ordered and paid for 5 evaluation units and bought a quickcam etc to test them with. What arrived were some of the worst home brewed items you have ever seen, built on scraps of perfboard with loose wires everywhere.

We told the developer they were basically unsaleable in that condition, and that he either needed to do a proper engineering job on them or licence us to have them made properly.

We repaired the 5 units, advertised them and had them reviewed in the belief that he would eventually take up one of these manufacturing options - but he never did. We eventually disposed of the last of the 5 units in a bargain basement bin at an Amiga show.

We never built any ourselves nor ever sold any more than the 5 we bought originally.


Do you have a particular agenda in posting libellous nonsense like this?

Please do not post such unfounded and untrue rumours in the future.

Alan Redhouse
Eyetech.

[Helgis75]

It's a nice motherboard anyway...

[Themamboman]

Do you have a particular agenda in posting libellous nonsense like this

My apologies.  I had only heard his side of the story, and that was years ago.  

I am surprised that the units you received were in bad shape.  The one I got a couple of months before that was very carefully put together (although it did look like a handmade job, he'd obviously put much time into it).

I wasn't out to cause damage to your business, but more of a word of caution.  I lost contact with him not too long after his initial complaint, so I didn't hear what, if any resolution had occured.

I'm in self-imposed posting exile for a while now.

TheMamboman
 :-(

[JoannaK]

@eyetech

Hi Alan.. As you nowdays seem to be more active here than on official Amiga-one list I would like to ask this thingy and with your permission to post your replies to A-one list?

A) Have those 25 Aone-XE boards arrived and hae they been tested as  was supposed to happen in mid-Janyary?

B) Was that test successfull enough so you have now ordered  production series of XE board to all those who have been expecting them last weeks?

C) Any idea when those boards arrive to you so you can deliver to all customers waiting them. Seen some here, all anxious to install last missing pieces (Motherboard and OS) to their computers.

JoannaK

[DaveP]

@JoannaK

Eyetech have posted 7 times thus far to Amiga.org compared to
many fold that on the A-one list. So that is not really the
case.

In this instance a specific allegation was made that was
damaging and public ( in the same way that mud gets
thrown at Genesi ) and Eyetech were brought here by an
e-mail ( no not mine ) in all probability.

I would not expect them to stick around beyond the apology
note that followed theirs.

Why don't you put your questions to Alan in an e-mail or maybe
even phone Eyetech direct?

[JoannaK]

DaveP wrote:

Why don't you put your questions to Alan in an e-mail or maybe
even phone Eyetech direct?

This way I only have to copy it once from here  to Amiga-one list. There are many people waiting XE on this board so giving this board release information here would be a good start. I think you too have seen those big threads where people announce what thingies they have purchased to be ready for this board. And If I remember right they were expecting  to have received  those boards by now.

Besides, I don't like talking on non native languages on long distance telephone and taking the risk of misquoting and -understanding. So It's better for all that he answers in here or at A-one mailing list.  And if he decides not to give any answer it's his decision.

My best bet is that we'll hear some exotic excuses next. This A-one making process has been a bit like watching  ST-TNG series  where each episode had it's new 'mysterious particle' causing mishaps and it's handled by some 'random technobabble' .. and then it's all well and forgotten for new episode.  :-P