AMIGAONE.... isn't it an obsolete technology already?

[minator]

Mercury-Momentum = They have one shipping product (the development board), it appears two more on the way, do you honestly believe they are a major portion of the G5s sold?

Momentum alone have done quite a few 970 based boards but I don't think all of them are public.  Mercury sell to military, medical etc. type customers so we're unlikely to hear much of what they sell either.

My point it Apple are not the only people selling 970 based systems.  Apple are the only company selling them to the general public though.

Telcos probably find them useful. ---- G5 is a pretty expensive part for the that use, why exactly do you think that is true??

G5 is a very good DSP, Telcos (or suppliers thereof) can and do pay top dollar for that sort of processor, e.g. Ericsson signed a deal with Compaq to buy $1 billion worth of Alpha processors a few years ago, and they were sure never cheap.

IBM hasnt been able to ship enough G5's to its primary buyer Apple.

Ars technica forwarded a theory a while back that says the supply problems were due to Apple not ordering enough parts and expecting more to be instantly available - not a sensible move given it take 3 months to make a new batch.  IBM did admit to having yield problems in early 04 but never since.  They don't seem to have problems making millions of processors for Microsoft.

And of course you are still missing the point, which of these products use the fastest G5's (only apple), which of these use the dual core G5's (only apple).

IBM have already announced dual core blades...
I agree the really high end 970s are being driven by Apple and the pressure to push them will be off after Apple leave.  However with PA Semi appearing both IBM and Freeescale now have some pretty serious competition and will need to compete.  It could be argued that this is only an "embedded processor" but that doesn't mean it'll be a useless desktop chip or slow, it's looking like it'll be just as good as anything Intel will be producing.

IBM look like they want to get into the low end server market, they're getting pressured by AMD now and would probably rather have their own chip in their boxes.  AMD and Intel are giving up on clock speed, IBM are still pushing upwards so a cut down POWER6 could be just right for that market - Apple or not.

I disagree, who exactly in your opinion bought more then 2 million G4s last year to take Apple out of #1 G4 buyer in your opinion?? My info says Apple is number 1, if you think I am wrong, you are going to have to come up with a name and some facts.

So, you're saying you are right because, well, you just are?

I haven't heard who but I have heard they aren't the biggest G4 customer, given it is primarily an embedded part and that's Freescale's business this shouldn't be terribly surprising.  

I mean your Freescale comment is funny, but not alot of reason with it, even you agree Apple bought the most G5's yet they couldnt get one good enough for a laptop could they??

The lower clocked G5s have long run cool enough for laptop, the problem seems to have been the recently replaced Northridge, it ran both slow and hot.

[coldfish]

by dylansmrjo on 2005/11/18 2:41:07

Porting OS4 to x86 would be even better

At least in regard to availability of hardware and hardware prices.

However, supporting the wide array of hardware could turn out to be quite troublesome.

Porting to x86 would give a much greater market, allowing for lower prices and therefore larger sales numbers

Even porting to a -limited- set of X86 hardware would be a boon!  For that matter even a limited set of PPC boards, I dont actually care about CPU.
 
I'd be happy with a port to just a select few currently available massmarket boards/configs.  

At least then you could nip out buy the required bits from youre local computer shop for around the same price as everyone else, and get stuck into OS4.

meh, pie in the sky...

[dylansmrjo]

Coldfish... exactly...

imagine AmigaOS4pr running on one of these cheap 1.8GHz Duron-pc's, with 256 MB ram, 80 GB Harddisk, AGP 8x, and so on .. for 25% of the price for one microA1-C :-D

[itix]

One reason why MorphOS and AmigaOS4 (have to) stick to PPC is
backwards compatibility. AROS is ported to x86 (or rather it always
was) but you cant use existing M68k, PowerUp or WarpUp software with
it.

[dylansmrjo]

Well, nothing prevents me from playing old amiga games on my x86 PC ;-)  (however: I'd prefer to spend time on coding a Gimp-clone from scratch.. but that'll have to wait :-P )

Backwards compatibility is mostly important when you have a large application base. However, there is hardly any application base left on the Amiga side - compared with Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and Windows.

However. Sticking to the PPC platform would be good. Imagine AOS4 ported to Peg2 :-D. Quite better hardware for half the price of an mA1-c :-o

Besides that, machinecode for the PPC looks much better than x86 machinecode.

The PPC is elegant :-P

[bloodline]

dylansmrjo wrote:

Besides that, machinecode for the PPC looks much better than x86 machinecode.

The PPC is elegant :-P

Have you ever looked at PPC asm? It's horrible... Granted x86 is no oil painting, but PPC is hardly any better... If it's elegance you want then it has to be 68k...

[bloodline]

dylansmrjo wrote:
Well, the only clearly outdated item here is: PC133 SDRAM

Good old PCI is not obsolete, nor is AGP.

Both are very much obsolete!!! No one in their right mind would buy these technologies any more.

SDRAM is obsolete, but you gain next to nothing with DDR RAM when the FSB is running at 133 MHz. However, considering the lower prices on DDR RAM, it would be great if it was possible to use it with A1.

I wouldn't buy a DDR ram machine anymore either... DDR2 is now the minimum spec, I would part with cash for.

A1 is not obsolete, it is however overpriced based on specs.

Obsolete and over priced, it always has been.

The only way to get lower prices is to produce a lot more. That requires quite some investments, which apparently is a major risk for a company like EyeTech.

Not a major risk, simply an impossibility, the money is not there.

I'd prefer to see AOS4 running on a Peg2 :-P

An x86-64 board would be better.

[dylansmrjo]

Well, we did mess a bit with PPC asm in school. Looks way better than x86 asm IMO.

Haven't seen 68k asm but I've heard it should be a beauty :-P

[dylansmrjo]

bloodline wrote:
Both are very much obsolete!!! No one in their right mind would buy these technologies any more.

PCI and AGP 8x isn't obsolete. There are newer standards, but mobos with PCI-E are approx. 5-8 times more expensive than mobos with good old PCI and AGP 8x. Most graphics card are still AGP-based, and 32-bit PCI is still the most widely used standard.

The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete. It'll take 12-18 months before they can be considered obsolete for the home user.

Only hardcore gamers benefit from PCI-E and DDR-RAM2.

I wouldn't buy a DDR ram machine anymore either... DDR2 is now the minimum spec, I would part with cash for.

Well, you're a hardcore gamer, right?

I don't buy expensive stuff. I buy the cheap stuff, and a lot of that. 1024 MB DDR-RAM is much better than 256 MB DDR-RAM2 :-P

You also consider 32-bit CPUs obsolete, right? And parallel IDE? Despite the fact that most computers sold are still 32-bit and most harddisks are still parallel IDE?

REPEATING: The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete.

Obsolete and over priced, it always has been.

Nope, just overpriced. Look at it from home user perspective, and not from a narrowminded clueless stupid hardcore gamer, who knows next to nothing about optimizing a system :lol:

Not a major risk, simply an impossibility, the money is not there.

Nothing is impossible. However, certain actions are extremely risky.

An x86-64 board would be better.

Well, it would be overkill. But it wouldn't be bad. But x86-64 is still 5-8 times more expensive than a standard 32-bit system. Remember: Selling for the masses, not the classes. We don't care about hardcore gamers, we care about the home user. No need for anything above 1.5 GHz, nor higher than AGP 8x or DDR-RAM.

We're not building a high-end server system, you know :-P

[bloodline]

dylansmrjo wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Both are very much obsolete!!! No one in their right mind would buy these technologies any more.

PCI and AGP 8x isn't obsolete. There are newer standards, but mobos with PCI-E are approx. 5-8 times more expensive than mobos with good old PCI and AGP 8x. Most graphics card are still AGP-based, and 32-bit PCI is still the most widely used standard.

The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete. It'll take 12-18 months before they can be considered obsolete for the home user.

The last Motherboard I bought, back in January (almost a year ago) was PCIe (nForce 4 based), it cost me £50... it was actually one of the cheapest boards I could buy at the time!  

Only hardcore gamers benefit from PCI-E and DDR-RAM2.

Not really. I just don't want to spend money on a product that will only last me a few months before I can't upgrade/find parts for it.

I wouldn't buy a DDR ram machine anymore either... DDR2 is now the minimum spec, I would part with cash for.

Well, you're a hardcore gamer, right?

No... but I do use my machine as a Digial Audio Workstation... so I guess I'm in a similar terratory....

I don't buy expensive stuff. I buy the cheap stuff, and a lot of that. 1024 MB DDR-RAM is much better than 256 MB DDR-RAM2 :-P

True, but RAM is one of the things that you always have an upgrade cycle with... no point buying a Mobo which gets more expensive to upgrade over time.

You also consider 32-bit CPUs obsolete, right? And parallel IDE? Despite the fact that most computers sold are still 32-bit and most harddisks are still parallel IDE?

I wouldn't buy a 32bit CPU any more (though to be fair I bought one in May, when I got a G4 PowerBook, but laptops are not upgrade machines so they don't count)...

I Certainly would never buy a P-ATA drive. But then my nForce 4 Mobo has 4 (3 empty) S-ATA slots...

REPEATING: The fact that there are newer standards, does not make older standards obsolete.

Um... yeah it does. :-P

Obsolete and over priced, it always has been.

Nope, just overpriced. Look at it from home user perspective, and not from a narrowminded clueless stupid hardcore gamer, who knows next to nothing about optimizing a system :lol:

I look on it as a system that I plan to get a few years use out of, meaning a planned upgrade cycle.

If I was just a Home user, I get a Mac Mini. No upgrade plans, and all the software I need built in.

Not a major risk, simply an impossibility, the money is not there.

Nothing is impossible. However, certain actions are extremely risky.

[/quote]

Quoting Depeche Mode isn't going to get you browine points... actually it does, so I'll agree with you even though I don't ;-)

An x86-64 board would be better.

Well, it would be overkill. But it wouldn't be bad. But x86-64 is still 5-8 times more expensive than a standard 32-bit system. Remember: Selling for the masses, not the classes. We don't care about hardcore gamers, we care about the home user. No need for anything above 1.5 GHz, nor higher than AGP 8x or DDR-RAM.

We're not building a high-end server system, you know :-P[/quote]

I disagree, an x86-64 based solution would be cheaper than most systems... and certainly give you more bang for your buck.

[Seehund]

dylansmrjo wrote:

A1 is not obsolete, it is however overpriced based on specs.

In this case, at least, obsolete and overpriced are the same thing.

The Terons could not be produced at a cost that would allow sales at a price that consumers would be prepared to pay for that product. They're low volume items, so today Eyetech might be paying up to, say, $200 per board to the manufacturer. Even if Eyetech lowered their own reseller price to $210, nobody in their right mind would buy this product for that kind of money. I.e. there still wouldn't be any volumes to speak of.

Look at similarly specced (K*133) old PC motherboards. I've seen them on Pricewatch for $10. So old stock is still available, but noone's going to make new ones, because consumers aren't prepared to pay much more than a tenner for them. The technology might still be around, but it's not profitable to produce any more of those products.

They're all obsolete!

The only way to get lower prices is to produce a lot more. That requires quite some investments, which apparently is a major risk for a company like EyeTech.

No, increased production requires increased consumer demand for the product. One can invest all one wants in buying more product from the manufacturer, but that's useless if there's no demand for the product. Poor availability is not the only reason to why people don't want to buy "AmigaOnes".

[dylansmrjo]

@ bloodline:

It's interesting you can get a mobo for 50$ and still get PCI-E.

In Denmark you don't get PCI-E at that price. You get a couple of 32-PCI slots, an AGP 8x, and 2 or 3 DDR-RAM slots. And perhaps S-ATA if you're lucky (just checked up on the prices).

Even many mobos at 200$ doesn't ship with PCI-E and DDR-RAM2.

Take a mA1-C, replace PC133 with DDR-RAM, G4 @ 1.4 GHz, S-ATA and AGP 8x and sell it for no more than 150$ and you have something which can sell quite well.

Nodoby with a sane mind would ever buy a Mac Mini. Mac OS X is extremely slow, and eats system resources in a way that ought to embarass Steve Jobs. It's as bad as Vista. Mac OS X has however a nice implementation of the desktop metaphor.

But an updated mA1-c with AOS4 at a much lower price still beats Windows and MacOS X IMO (but I prefer efficient small systems).

[Seehund]

dylansmrjo wrote:
@ bloodline:

It's interesting you can get a mobo for 50$ and still get PCI-E.

In Denmark you don't get PCI-E at that price.

Well, EVERYTHING is more expensive around our parts of the world...

That said, here is a PCI-e x16 mobo for the equivalent of £41 (bloodline's talking GBP, not USD).
(I picked itbutikken.dk because I already knew about them since they ship to Sweden too. There could be cheaper alternatives.)

[Zac67]

I wasn't really ranting because of PCI (PCIe has no big advantages yet - for desktops), but because of PCI interconnect, ie the connection from the north bridge to the south bridge and everything else.
It limits the complete I/O throughput to an absolute max of 133 MB/s in total.
gigabit ethernet requires 125 MB/s
(P-)ATA requires 133 MB/s
SATA requires 150 MB/s
So each of these maxes out PCI alone.

The VIA686B south bridge is complete crap; when PCI is saturated, it starts losing data from the IDE interface. All PC boards with this south bridge suffer more or less from this, causing massive instability.

When I was talking about PC133 that included the slow FSB and AGP connect. PC133/FSB133 can't do more than 1 GB/s (very theoretical value), so heavy AGP load slows down the CPU and vice versa.

[dylansmrjo]

Aaahh... Pound Sterling it is :-P

Well, it means 60% higher prices ;-)

But okay. In Denmark one can for £50 (and not $50) actually get a DDR-RAM2 and PCI-E capable mobo. But only for AMD (ASRock 775Dual-880Pro).

But it doesn't change the fact that the mobo is more than twice as expensive as standard mobo's.

Upgrading the mA1-C to DDR-RAM and AGP 8x should be enough for the next 18 months. If (and only if) the price is comparable to the prices for the x86 platform.

A mA1-C mobo (without CPU) for £25 would be nice - and then I wouldn't care about PCI-E nor DDR-RAM2 :-)

A much much better idea would be to port AOS4 to Peg2.

[dylansmrjo]

In Denmark you can for £356.52 get a Peg2 with 256 MB DDR-RAM, a G4 @ 1 GHz, Radeon 7000 with 64 MB RAM, and a MorphOS cd (which would be replaced with AOS4 if it was available - but unfortunately it isn't).

I would buy such a solution, if it ran AOS4.

A mA1-C with somewhat similar specs costs £610.85. And that's the main problem.

A lot would be gained if AOS4 was ported to the Peg2.