AOS4 & Amigaone

[spirantho]

Funny how these arguments always break out when someone mentions Pegasos and AmigaOne in the same sentence.

I have two points for you:
1) I'm posting this on an AmigaOne (A1XE-G4@800, latest AWeb, AOS4 PR3)
2) I'm not selling it.

I think both of those points are a pretty good way of refuting the "A1 is broken" argument, myself.

[Waccoon]

MskoDestny:  I don't understand why it's so important to you that the folks at Hyperion declare OS4 finished.

Neither do I.  Software is never "finished."  :-)

Besides, once it's "finished," people who don't own an AmigaOne will just continue to complain about how many things are missing, which means we enter Windows territory:  patch mania.

Come on.  When I bought my Mac mini, the first thing I had to do was connect to Apple Update and download 300+ Megs of pathces and updates.  Yes, that's right.  300MB.

jkirk:  without a large production run the cost is high.

Of course.  But, somebody felt the PPC decision was the right way to go, and had to realize that supply would be a problem -- and didn't care.

Hyperion et al are looking beyond the Amiga community to make money.  That's what makes it so puzzling to me why PPC was the only real choice as the platform.  If they are looking towards potential markets where backwards compatibility with existing PPC Amiga software is a non-issue, why focus on a CPU that is really only popular in servers, routers, and game machines?  Surely companies involved in these markets already have OS partners of their own, using systems far more powerful and robust than OS4.

Isn't this against everything Amiga Inc. told us about DE (or AA, or WhatEver)?  Funny how they are trying to sell most of their pocket games on ARM machines while their future OS runs on PPC.  OS4 on the Playstation3?  The PSP is based on MIPS.

Maybe instead of making an expensive PPC board and port a "lightweight" OS to it, they should have used x86 and stuck 2 Gigs of RAM in it.  It would still be cheaper!  :-)

Lando:  That is part of the reason OS4 is ~3 years late - the time it's taken them to work around the broken aspects of the Articia.

I don't buy that for a second.  Hyperion simply overcommitted to a very huge task.  Porting an OS is a lot more complicated than porting a game.

Didn't they have to pause OS4 development for a while becuase they needed to work on other projects to make some money?

Tigger:  Sure you do, to get rid of the cache coherancy issue (and other issues with the Articia) Hyperion hacked the drivers, slowing the entire DMA system down, its great you don't see a problem it doesnt mean the systems DMA isn't dog slow because of the hack.

I buy this.  As a PC user, I notice hard drive throughput right away on each system I use, while CPU speed is pretty much irrelevent.  Most people I know blame the CPU for everything, and easily don't notice performance issues that are releated to the motherboard.  Yet another reason why "budget" comptuers can sell with such high-end CPUs, and still offer lousy performance (and provide mucho fuel for x86 bashers).  People just don't realize that the whole system has to be matched and tuned to get good performance, and that the chipset makes a HUGE difference.

Besides, to what will an ArticaS board be compared?  It's not like there's a hundred PPC boards out there available for benchmarks, like in the PC world, and good, x86 vs PPC benchmarks are rarely unbiased.  ArticaS follows hardware standards several years old, too.  Is is fair to compare it to a brand new PC, or do we compare it to a Pentium3?

[Seehund]

wonea wrote:
I've seen some pegasos's going cheap.  Would these be able to run AOS4, or am I chancing death?

Of course they are perfectly able to run AmigaOS4, and so is most PPC consumer hardware (which nowadays basically means "a Mac").

The problem is not hardware or its vendors. The problem is AmigaOS not being allowed by its own IP-owners to be adapted to and sold for more hardware to more people on an open market. See my signature and this site...

BTW, I wouldn't call the Pegasoses "cheap". Of course they're cheap when compared to a so-called "AmigaOne", but it takes quite some effort to be THAT expensive! The Pegasos 2 is actually functioning as advertised and is obviously better hardware with better support (from a company that at least seems to know what they're doing regarding their own product) than anything offered with an "AmigaOne" sticker. Another advantage is that it's also available to buy. I don't see how there can be any discussion on what's the better hardware. The bummer is that you're not allowed to choose whether to run AOS and/or MOS on it.

If you've already decided to get AmigaOS4, I suggest you hold off buying anything until AOS4 is commercially available, and see what hardware they're going to allow you to buy as an AmigaOS user then. Who knows, maybe common sense will prevail and the IMO retarded and harmful "Amiga hardware" requirement will eventually be thrown back on the scrap heap of history where it belongs.

MOS looks okay, but checking out morphos.net makes me think its not worth bothering.  Plus I remember an interview with Carl Sassenrath about him not getting paid, plus someone from either FreeBSD or OpenBSD not getting paid.  Should I be giving money to a company like this?

Others have already addressed that here, and I don't dare to touch the subject. Here is a collection of links to statements from all involved parties regarding the OpenBSD controversy.

[Paul]

@thread

Don't let Tigger scare you. The microA1 "C" hardware features _do_ indeed work with OS4. USB/DMA/IDE/Ethernet/on-board graphics/sound, etc...

For that matter, even the older ones aren't as "flawed" as the opposition originally tried to claim, and still trie to portray. The onboard AC97 sound on my A1XE is working quite nicely now. I had it running concurrently with Thor, AWeb PPC and DNET working on OGR25. THere was no sound breakup, no loss of throughput on web sites or email downloads/uploads. So I'm not sure what the problem might be with either TCP/IP, ethernet port or sound. Maybe I just lucked out on every periphral I've purcvhased for my A1 so far. They all work. (oops, OK, the Catweasel doesn't do anything useful yet bevause Jens hasn't written any floppy drivers for OS4. But that's not an A1 hardware issue is it then?)

DMA? Sure, there is a "problem" there. It's fixable for about $30 with shipping and handling included. But I've been anjoying my A1 too much to take it apart and send it in. I just bought a Sii DMA 133 card and run my main drives from there. Besides, this also helps get areound the problem of having the ability to connect only four devices. I was used to my 4000 with its Phase5 SCSI plus onboard IDE. Lots of devices!

So what do we have? We have some early hardware (sorry Tigger, but you're wrong here, too. I ordered my XE when it was still being called a "developer" board. Actually, I ordered the SE, because that's all there was when I ordered. But the XE's came out just in the nick of time so I could change my order to an XE. But it was still beofre the "EARLYBIRD" era.)

Everything you so conveniently blame on the Articia isn't even because of the Articia. THe sound has been traced to a problem in the Via southbridge and is now fixed in AHI.

But cheer up, Tig. I'lll agree with you on one thing. The A1's are expensive. On the other hand, you're claim that there will be no more manufactured is rumour and conjecture, like so much else that you write.

Disclaimer: I do not have an electronics laboratory of my own like Tigger apparently has. I do not possess several Articia chips. (just the one that's been working in my A1 for a couple years nnow without problem.) I am not trained in electronics engeneering. Nor am I tied in any way to a computer baord manufacturing company.

But I do know this: As a complet Linux newbie, I had my A1 up and running and taking care of my email and web surfing from day one. I played around a litle with GIMP and Abiword. I think it took about four months from delivery before OS4 pre1 was released. I didn't know I was suposed to turn off DMA until about the last three weeks of Linux use. I didn't have any trouble even with DMA on. . .  Not even while I was online.

So, after all this long rambling, I can only say that Tigger is taking some known flaws and making mountains out of molehills. Tkae his rant with a grain of salt.

Hey, Tig, ya' know what. My Windoze box at work (fairly old now) has an Asus motherboard with a Via chipset. I wouldn't do sound at all until I downloaded new firmare and isntalled it.

Paul

[Seehund]

jkirk wrote:

and how many thousands of dells and macs are produced at a single production run? without a large production run the cost is high. eyetech could not produce a high enough quantity to allow a lower price.

The end-customer price for a Teron once it's been relabeled to "AmigaOne" is severely inflated. That's a matter of fact. When Mai ordered even smaller Teron production volumes than Eyetech did (because the boards were meant to be included in Mai's Articia developer kits only), then you could still buy a Teron from Mai for ~$300 less than Eyetech's price for the exact same hardware, and AmigaOS was not included in Eyetech's price at the time.

Tigger's already mentioned Terrasoft announcing Teron PX sales at an initial (=high) price below $500 (including taxes, Yellow Dog Linux, support -- and a profit margin). That plan failed because the hardware was and is flawed and unsellable (by a reputable company) at any price.

as for genesi they can skirt around that issue with bplan(since they are a manufacturer) eyetech has to pay someone else to produce for them.

I wonder where this mythology has its origins? Genesi aren't "skirting around" anything and aren't underhandedly "subsidizing" anything or whatever other wacko theories I've seen been suggested as excuses for the price difference between Pegasoses (or whatever hardware) and "AmigaOnes".

Pegs are expensive, not cheap. It's relatively low-volume PowerPC hardware, after all. "AmigaOnes" are expensive and overpriced by an unnecessary middleman with a de facto monopoly on an artificially created pseudo-market consisting to a large part of customers who will pay anything for something with an "Amiga" related trademark, simple as that.

[Seehund]

Paul wrote:

@thread

Don't let Tigger scare you. The microA1 "C" hardware features _do_ indeed work with OS4. USB/DMA/IDE/Ethernet/on-board graphics/sound, etc...

For that matter, even the older ones aren't as "flawed" as the opposition originally tried to claim, and still trie to portray.

"The opposition"? "Claim"? Why is it that exposed and repeatedly proven hardware flaws are "claims from the opposition" around this part of the computing world when it comes to this particular series of motherboards, but if it were about e.g. ASUS motherboards then there would be no debate? "The USB on the ASUS A7M-266D mobo is broken, here's the proof. Don't buy it. Buy another product."

To answer myself, I think it could have something to do with the unfortunate lack of "another product" (combined with the irrational zealotry that tends to taint anything associated with The Trademark).

Combine this with hardware "reviews" consisting of community members posting screenshots and dnetc benchmarks, together with customers who have lived in isolation and now are drowning in their own drool to finally see something that's faster than their one decade old Amigas, even if it costs up to 80 times as much as similarly performing (and functional) x86 hardware from 1999.

"MD5SUM, what's that? Who need's 100Mbit throughput? It only corrupts data occasionally! The IDE issues are almost fixed, just get a 3rd party IDE controller card! 133 MHz bus schmus, 100 MHz works fine! The A4000 used to cost $3000, and I can't even remember what companies used to pay for a PDP-11!"

So what do we have? We have some early hardware (sorry Tigger, but you're wrong here, too. I ordered my XE when it was still being called a "developer" board.

It has never been sold as a "developer" board or with any disclaimer whatsoever with regards to the hardware. Never. That is a recently invented lie in response to warranty claims (I think it happened in (one of) the last "Q&As" with Redhouse on aw.net).

All Terons ever sold by Eyetech (with the possible exception for a very small number of Teron CX's of the first VIA686A revision, I'm not sure about that one detail today) have been sold as "AmigaOnes". I.e. with the alleged certified quality, guaranteed compatibility, having passed stringent testing, with full support et c. Those were among the reasons for why people were supposed to buy "AmigaOnes" from Eyetech instead of Terons from Mai, TSS, Inguard or whoever. This was the hardware end-users were supposed to buy now and later use with AmigaOS. People weren't supposed to buy new hardware again, once AmigaOS is released!

The only caveat posted before that lie was regarding software: AmigaOS is not yet finished, and firmware updates might be released, and that alone is why the "Earlybird" offer was said to be not suitable "for everyone".

The word "Earlybird" was the name of the offer where you would get AmigaOS for free (when available) if you bought an "AmigaOne" before a certain date. It had nothing to do with "developer" or "beta-testing" hardware.

And how the hell would a customer "develop" a motherboard that he's bought anyway?

[drHirudo]

At the end of the day, anyone stupid enough to pay $800+ for one of those things got what they deserved. I have no sympathy.

If you have no sympathy why don't you just quit and stop repeating yourself? There are greener fields in the horizon you are looking at, I am sure.

I paid 800+ Euro for my MicroA1, and I don't feel sorry about this. I received working board with working AmigaOS 4, and that's what I expected. The software releases and updates in the past months are more than what I expected.

Seems you are smarter, after calling people like me stupid, but your rant about the price shows that your aren't paid good enough else that $800+ wouldn't be a fortune for you. In the end of the day, I might be a stupid but I can spent big money for whatever I want, and I don't care what you think. And I am happy with my purchase, that's the most important.

P.S. If you are that smart, why aren't you wealthy enough to buy both solutions and decide from first hand which is better? Ok, just enjoy you free MorphOS T-Shirt and be happy.

[Seehund]

drHirudo wrote:

At the end of the day, anyone stupid enough to pay $800+ for one of those things got what they deserved. I have no sympathy.

If you have no sympathy why don't you just quit and stop repeating yourself? There are greener fields in the horizon you are looking at, I am sure.

I paid 800+ Euro for my MicroA1, and I don't feel sorry about this. I received working board with working AmigaOS 4, and that's what I expected. The software releases and updates in the past months are more than what I expected.

Seems you are smarter, after calling people like me stupid, but your rant about the price shows that your aren't paid good enough else that $800+ wouldn't be a fortune for you.

This is getting silly.
If I put out an ad for pine tree cones dipped in elk faeces and say I want $10 for each, then I don't think the reason to why you wouldn't want to buy one would be because you don't have $10!

Lots, maybe a majority, of adult employed people in the western industrialised world have $800. Amazingly enough, Eyetech have not sold a couple of hundred million "AmigaOnes" yet.

In the end of the day, I might be a stupid but I can spent big money for whatever I want, and I don't care what you think. And I am happy with my purchase, that's the most important.

With regards to the potential for survival and commercial viability of AmigaOS, the most important thing is not whether "drHirudo" is happy or not.

P.S. If you are that smart, why aren't you wealthy enough to buy both solutions and decide from first hand which is better? Ok, just enjoy you free MorphOS T-Shirt and be happy.

One usually can decide which hardware is better without buying it. Lando seems wealthy enough to buy an iBook G4 anyway...

[drHirudo]

Lots, maybe a majority, of adult employed people in the western industrialised world have $800. Amazingly enough, Eyetech have not sold a couple of hundred million "AmigaOnes" yet.

The AmigaOne isn't aimed to the majority of the adult employed people in the western industrialised world. It's releases till now were mostly for the current or past Amiga users, which are not that much nowadays.

With regards to the potential for survival and commercial viability of AmigaOS, the most important thing is not whether "drHirudo" is happy or not.

It's the most important for me. For me these 800 Euros were reasonable spent.

One usually can decide which hardware is better without buying it. Lando seems wealthy enough to buy an iBook G4 anyway...

I can buy one too, but it wouldn't run AmigaOS 4 Also a 14" monitor is not a good one. After getting used to 20", everything smaller than that is crap for me :-D

[cecilia]

I can buy one too, but it wouldn't run AmigaOS 4

see, that's the main thing some people forget. why would anyone want an amigaone/micro or for that matter a peg?

so they can run amiga programs.

do i state the obvious?

well, Duh!

this is all about being able to play with a fun OS. I've looked over some of the recent posts here and it's all a description of people buying what they wanted and HAVING FUN with it!
the boring debate about price and HW is basically irrelevant. certainly people can debate tech issues all they want. that's "fun" for some people. but for others, just HAVING a toy to play with is exactly the point.

[Mangar]

Why are the developers of AOS4 tying the OS to specific hardware. This is how the Amiga got in this mess in the first place by not allowing Amiga-Compatible computers. When IBM allowed anyone to make a clone of its computers the amiga was left in the dust.

Where is the business sense in this? They could make a lot more money off the OS than with hardware. Palm realized this when they started to license their OS to Sony and other PDA manufacturers.

Give me AOS4 I can install on a PPC system of my choice and I'll buy it.

I wish someone with some common sense had the cash to buy all the rights when Commodore went bankrupt. Commodore may have made huge mistakes but they look like geniuses compared to who has controlled the Amiga since then.

[Seehund]

Mangar wrote:
Why are the developers of AOS4 tying the OS to specific hardware.

The developers (Hyperion) aren't the ones behind the tying. Reading between the lines when they post on forums, they don't give the impression of being overly enthusiastic about it either.

The ones behind the tying are a computer shop (Eyetech) and the company controlling the trademark and IP behind the OS (Amiga, Inc.).

Why? God knows.

Eyetech probably thought there would be money in it. Heh. So they printed their "AmigaOne" stickers and got the expected 1000-something people to empty their wallets. Now what?

As for AInc, they don't seem to have given a sh!t about AmigaOS when they accepted Eyetech's compulsory licensing idea, and AInc might have been tempted by a little quick (but small and short-term) licensing cash when everything was falling apart around them.

This is how the Amiga got in this mess in the first place by not allowing Amiga-Compatible computers. When IBM allowed anyone to make a clone of its computers the amiga was left in the dust.

Where is the business sense in this? They could make a lot more money off the OS than with hardware. Palm realized this when they started to license their OS to Sony and other PDA manufacturers.

Obviously there is no business sense. Maybe someone once thought there could be, but in that case I'd say they've been proven wrong over and over again for 3 years now.

Officially AInc do claim to welcome new hardware vendor licensees. In reality, everyone who so far has enquired and even negotiated (even to the point of a missing signature on the licensing agreement!) has been ignored or eventually turned down.

Regarding Palm, AmigaOS is not meant for or suitable for being embedded in PDA-type devices (even if Hyperion's new website strange enough says it is), and that's the sort of market where hardware vendor licensing is standard and expected. Not many users care about or even know about the OS that runs their calendar and address book apps, or install PDA OSs themselves.

Desktop computer end-user OSs are of course licensed for bundling by hardware vendors too, and if anyone actually would be interested to buy such a licence for AmigaOS then more power to them. The retarded thing that's done by AInc/Eyetech is making the licensing/bundling compulsory, and making the OS and its users dependent on abundant existence of hardware licensees. The OS is only supposed to be available bundled with "licenced" hardware on a market separated from the normal open market for that hardware. No separately sold copies for people to buy and install themselves. We may not buy the exact same hardware but sold by a normal "unlicensed" vendor.
No licence for vendor of hardware X = no port for hardware X and no sales for hardware X.

Give me AOS4 I can install on a PPC system of my choice and I'll buy it.

Yup. The most common "outsider's" comment posted in response to AmigaOS stories on e.g. OSNews seems to be along the lines of "if they insist on PPC, why the hell can't I buy it for a cheaper, better and faster Mac?"

[Seehund]

drHirudo wrote:

Lots, maybe a majority, of adult employed people in the western industrialised world have $800. Amazingly enough, Eyetech have not sold a couple of hundred million "AmigaOnes" yet.

The AmigaOne isn't aimed to the majority of the adult employed people in the western industrialised world. It's releases till now were mostly for the current or past Amiga users, which are not that much nowadays.

I think you might have missed my point. I was trying to say that it doesn't matter if you have the money, if you don't think the product is worth the money (or if you simply aren't interested).

I wasn't serious about the "Eyetech haven't sold millions" bit. Really! I was just trying to show how silly it looked when you speculated on Lando's (or anybody else's, for that matter) lack of funds as the reason for not buying an "AmigaOne".

With regards to the potential for survival and commercial viability of AmigaOS, the most important thing is not whether "drHirudo" is happy or not.

It's the most important for me. For me these 800 Euros were reasonable spent.

I know that's the most important for you, you just said so. I'm not arguing against your personal reasons.

One usually can decide which hardware is better without buying it. Lando seems wealthy enough to buy an iBook G4 anyway...

I can buy one too, but it wouldn't run AmigaOS 4 Also a 14" monitor is not a good one. After getting used to 20", everything smaller than that is crap for me :-D

Well, there you go. You haven't bought an iBook because you don't like it or you don't think it's worth the money for your purposes. Not because you can't afford it. QED.

[Tigger]

Seehund wrote:

Mangar wrote:
Why are the developers of AOS4 tying the OS to specific hardware.

The developers (Hyperion) aren't the ones behind the tying. Reading between the lines when they post on forums, they don't give the impression of being overly enthusiastic about it either.

The ones behind the tying are a computer shop (Eyetech) and the company controlling the trademark and IP behind the OS (Amiga, Inc.).

I would agree with you except for one thing, Ben works/worked for Hyperion, and Ben bragged about writing the contract.  If one of your directors writes you a bad contract, and you sign it, saying its not your companies fault is an incorrect premise in my belief system.  I'm sorry OS4 is tied to shoddy unavailable hardware, before they had shipping hardware, we were talking why dont you make it run on G3 Imacs, but there hardware was better, etc then Apple, and going to be cheaper too.  None of that actually happened and we have no hardware available for OS4 at the moment.
     -Tig

[Tigger]

spirantho wrote:
Funny how these arguments always break out when someone mentions Pegasos and AmigaOne in the same sentence.

I have two points for you:
1) I'm posting this on an AmigaOne (A1XE-G4@800, latest AWeb, AOS4 PR3)
2) I'm not selling it.

I think both of those points are a pretty good way of refuting the "A1 is broken" argument, myself.

This arguement surely didnt start because of mention of Pegasos, I for one, and most of the people on here could care less about Pegasos, as for you points.

1) Proves absolutely nothing, what do you think it proves.

2) Again proves nothing, what do you think it proves.

The A1 is broken is a hardware fact.  I can mess with the OS until the hardware bugs aren't apparent to most is also a fact, however it doesnt change the first fact.   We fixed the Dpaint bug by fixing the AmigaDos 2.0 rom with a fix we called clickity split, it doesnt mean that Dpaint didnt have a bug in it, we masked it to help out the customer.  Hyperion is continuing to add software fixes to there OS to cover the broken parts of the hardware, if that doesnt effect you and what you do, thats fine, but that doesnt mean the hardware doesnt have a problem or that when you start trying something new with your computer it might not work because of the hardware bugs.
     -Tig

[Seehund]

Tigger wrote:

I would agree with you except for one thing, Ben works/worked for Hyperion, and Ben bragged about writing the contract.  If one of your directors writes you a bad contract, and you sign it, saying its not your companies fault is an incorrect premise in my belief system.

I agree with that reasoning. I should have written "the developers which I've seen speaking on the matter" instead of just "Hyperion".