The Next-Gen Amiga hardware

[KingTutt]

The problem with going to x86 is the massive hurdles faced when trying to support every x86 combo under the sun. Hyperion are a small company and if they want to make their OS viable, then they will opt for a smaller number of mainboards to support. I agree with them on this part.

Of course if they had the corporate muscle of Sony or Microsoft, then they would have no reason to make such concessions. Having said that, I look at OS4 as a stopgap in having a more advanced solution, compared to the old classic Amiga line.

I don't see the point in discussing why OS4 won't go x86 or why it won't have custom chips? Its a moot point. Everyone knows that its money and market forces. So ask yourself this, will x86 survive indefinitely? Eventually there will be 64 bit computing, and believe me Intel are having big problems with maintaining native backwards compatibility. I think that in the next few short years, Intel and AMD and especially M$ will be facing the same kinds of problems Apple faced when going PPC, or what we are facing right now. The difference will be that Amiga by that time will be well and truly established on PPC. It can only get better from there on.

[mdwh2]

KingTutt wrote:
The problem with going to x86 is the massive hurdles faced when trying to support every x86 combo under the sun. Hyperion are a small company and if they want to make their OS viable, then they will opt for a smaller number of mainboards to support. I agree with them on this part.

You don't have to. They can simply only support one, or a small number of x86 motherboards. You could say a similar thing for PPC, since industry standard hardware will still be used - eg, claiming that having PCI slots means that have to support every PCI graphics card under the sun, so they'd be better off with AGA or Zorro.

[Valan]

@mikeymike

Please stick to vaguely to the topic of the post.

Anyway,

Ho ho ho. Except that no-one to do with the AmigaOne or OS4 designed the Articia S chipset,

Um, that's why they said it is an 'off the shelf' design.

Apple to change its tune and bring its prices down, which gets it more sales;

Not really realistic as Apple is competing against PC machines and they still they maintain their high price.

Back on topic:
I do not see the future of Amiga hardware as dependant on PPC development. AI have stated that they want a truly hardware independent machine where the same software will run without modification on all AmigaOS compatible CPUs.

As we hear constantly the true pace of development comes from funds which ultimately come from sales.

Valan

[WarPiper]

@ ALL

ok get ready, this is a long one...

ok I did not have the patience to read each and every one of these posts, but I have to mention something that may shock you, ready?, ok here it goes, I still know and associate with people that still use an AMD 850&1000 Mhz Atholon processor with a cheap old TNT 2 graphics card, I only use a tiny 1.4Ghz Amd with just an old fashioned Geforce 2 MX, and along with me and my friends and family, we dont really see a need to upgrade any further at all, our systems run fine and we are happy.

True as it may be, I did kinda sell off all my amiga systems, now I am left with just 2 A500 mobos, but that does not mean that I would never consider the AmigaOne, I can deal with an 800 Mhz machine for as long as it has Amiga OS 4 or comparable OS to Amiga OS, I am going to review the pegasus and amigaone at the QAUG (Queens amiga users Group) meeting this weekend.  I dont like linux, and I dont care what you say, it sucks and is only for for egg heads, but I will waite to see where the latest amiga motherboards go, I consider the peg board and the AmigaOne both Amiga's just like the IBM and a clone from (pick any company) is a PC.  My whole thing is SOFTWARE, I WANT TO SEE SOFTWARE, GOOD STUFF, NOT THE LATEST AMINET CRAP!!, that will be the deciding factor in my purchase, good software, and software that can be purchased through the locale store (optimum) not this mail order crap.

Maybe if the people who make the AmigaOne motherboards and the pegasus motherboards would come together with hyperion with the OS or what ever, then go out kiss up and suck ass to the business world thats out there like Microsoft and Apple did, and also donate systems to schools and universities, and also try to get contracts from companies to use the amiga systems like both IBM APPLE, Gateway, Hewlett Packerd, Comcrap oops I mean Compaq does then yea, I can see a viable future for our beloved new systems, the market for amiga will widen, the demand will be more and development will be great! (nice dream eh?) but untill they really put there best foot forward and try to get out of this niche market none of this will ever happen, there are also companies that could sponcer up and comming technologies, if they would just assert themselves.

[smerf]

Hi,

My fastest PC is 900 mhz and I am completely happy with it.  My fastest Amiga runs a ppc at 210 mhz and I am completely happy with that.

The only thing I can say is who cares about techno freaks now who want the latest and greatest, if Amiga is to exist we have to support it now and buy the low end junk so that later on someone will have the bucks to build the higher end junk.

Don't know about you all, but I sure don't want to see winblows as the only OS left in the fray. So buy Amiga, it may not be high end but it may be some day.

Smerf

[Kurt]

@rodney

Boy were you a sucker for marketting.
Only until recently has my PC finally outpaced my Amiga. Until last year when I puchased a XP2100+ Machine. Until that time my Amiga scanned and printed many times faster than my 1.4gig Thunderbird. I also surfed using Ibrowse becuase IE was slower on most sites. I still use YAM for my mailer Mainly for Virus protection.

PS turboprint and Scanquix still do a better job scanning and printing than my PC. In fact my boss made a comment to me how the print quality of my documents had gone down. I had switched from final writer97 to wordperfect Office 2002.

Turboprint is true 24bit
WINDOWS is 12bit dithered to 24bit makes a big diff printing pictures.


Nothing on the PC seems to compare to scanquix for speed and quality.

I am writng this on my A1200T using Ibrowse.

Your comment about 95 outpacing the Amiga Nope not a chance unless you where using an unexpanded A500 and 1.2 maybe??

I agree with others on this thread  software matters that is why I Still use my A1200 and all the great software that is on it.
many times I pass documents and pictures back and forth on the network switching with my KVM using a package on the Amiga and the PC getting the best of both worlds to easily accomplish my tasks. My PC may be top of the line but it still can't do everything as well as my A1200 can.

New does not mean better .

goodnight

Kurt

[lempkee]

kurt: great examples , thats how i always was to my miggy and always will be.

anyway i dont own an pc and i have no need to use one either, but i know what it is ,) i was an Network admin for win systems and mac/linux for 3 years , after that ..well i wont touch a pc any longer.

its now 2 years since i touched a pc, i have loads of friends who use pc everyday, but i have no interests and i get lazy when i used pc...

there is a few things i miss on amiga that pc have but they aint making me think of an pc, stuff like Lightwave 6 and 7 , photoshop xxx etc, but i can live with imagefx and photogenics and lw 5 for now.

but i want JAVA really bad.... so amizilla i want ya

pps. the moral is , take what u got and do the best with it , i have a setup that i have used over 2000 quid on, and i have an amigaone also, and they doesnt make me lazy , i am actual productive on theese setups, on the damn pc's all i did was use alot of time on crap that no one know why was crashing/bugging or endless of unuseable features.

cheers

[KingTutt]

mdwh2 wrote:

KingTutt wrote:
The problem with going to x86 is the massive hurdles faced when trying to support every x86 combo under the sun. Hyperion are a small company and if they want to make their OS viable, then they will opt for a smaller number of mainboards to support. I agree with them on this part.

You don't have to. They can simply only support one, or a small number of x86 motherboards. You could say a similar thing for PPC, since industry standard hardware will still be used - eg, claiming that having PCI slots means that have to support every PCI graphics card under the sun, so they'd be better off with AGA or Zorro.

Actually the Scitech deal pretty much takes care of the "all the PCI cards under the sun issue", besides most people won't be using some Trident or Tseng Labs 1980s video card. And since Scitech already cater for a respectable amount of video drivers, its only fair for the OS4 user to use a video card from the list provided.

I still don't consider x86 a viable platform for Amiga. Maybe when they hit 64bit Opterons. But for the meantime there really isn't any real impetus. And then there's the question of porting already existing PPC Amiga software to x86, not to mention 68k code. That would really mess things up, quite nicely.

So in my mind, Hyperion have gone with the best choice for a niche market OS. Trying to go for the x86 platform would have undermined its interests considerably.

[pioneer]

To Amiga_boy:

People like you are the delight of hardware manufacturers. You have to have the latest hardware, even though it doesn't make a bit of difference to what you're doing (games). Frankly I'm tired of the hardware snobs who are deluded enough to think they have the latest hardware (since something new comes out every day).

[Atheist]

Hi lempkee,

I bad mouthed winblows, every chance I had, all the way until I got a pc in Aug. 2002.

Then I found out how awful w98se was. Get this. I downloaded the update, then, after a couple of weeks freecell wouldn't work, gave me the "blue screen of death". Like how do you download only ONE piece of SW? I didn't try, but it probably would have complained that I already have the newest update installed.

I had to re-install every 2 months. Games may, or may not work. Install wizards and constant updates and the re-boots, and safe boots, and driver updates, registry, shut down procedure,  etc....aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!  :-x

xp doesn't work as advertised, either.They show people flying, sure!

AmigaOne! I'm getting One (G4) by October 2003!

[WarPiper]

not really wanting to side with either side, Amiga or Microsoft, but I have to say for those of you that has had alot of trouble with win98, win98se, ok win98 and 98se sucks donky d!ck, and XP is just a broken slob of an OS, but I realy do have to say that I dont really think that most of you really know how to operate a PC computer running those OS's,  NOW NOW BEFOR YOU ALL GET YOU PANTIES IN A BUNCH, on my laptop, there is win 98 since the release of 98, as a matter of fact it is the original manufacture install, and it runs fine, never had to reload it, my amd 1.4Ghz tower PC is windows 2000, windows XP and Mandrake Linux 9.0 (I am going to reformat the linux partition cause linux just blows) but I have never had to reformat my 2000 partition since I got it installed 2&1/2 years ago, XP I have reformated at least twice for virus though no fault of its own

Why do you guys have so many problems with your PC's, I am sure I do the same as you did, play games download music, surf internet, voice chat, video conferance, video edit (I love firewire) and word, excel, power point, outlook, and watch movies.  What is it that you guys are doing wrong that I am not? I kinda feel left out of the bitching circle for amiga users that hate other OS's.

[jahc]

not really wanting to side with either side, Amiga or Microsoft, but I have to say for those of you that has had alot of trouble with win98, win98se, ok win98 and 98se sucks donky d!ck, and XP is just a broken slob of an OS, but I realy do have to say that I dont really think that most of you really know how to operate a PC computer running those OS's

@Warpiper

You may be right. I think the answer might be much simpler.. I have a friend with a PC running Win98. He's perfectly computer literate. He's had much more problems than me.. for one simple reason I think. He tries out a substantially greater amount of software than I do. I hardly ever install new software on my PC, and I've never had to reinstall Win98 (2 years so far).

[WarPiper]

@jahc

I am always installing new software, but never to my main boot drive, always to a differant partition or a second hard drive.

oh by the way, sorry if it seems like I come off like a know-it-all ass wipe in that last post, I just didn't know of a better way of expressing myself, and I am far from knowing all of anything.

[mikeymike]

@ Valan

Please stick to vaguely to the topic of the post.

We're talking about potential hardware development of the Amiga platform, right?  So what's your point here?

Have you completely forgotten the content of your post on page 2:

It is the slowdown in OS4 development that has caused a slowdown in the hardware development.

I was pointing out that your statement was flawed, then you responded with:

Um, that's why they said it is an 'off the shelf' design.

So what the heck has PPC development got to do with OS4's delays, I ask you?  It was you who said it, not me!

Not really realistic as Apple is competing against PC machines and they still they maintain their high price.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Back on topic:
I do not see the future of Amiga hardware as dependant on PPC development.

Do you find it fun to go off-topic yourself, accuse others of it, then get "back on topic"?  Pot > Kettle.  Seriously.

AI have stated that they want a truly hardware independent machine where the same software will run without modification on all AmigaOS compatible CPUs.

That was regarding the first designs for the AmigaOne.  That requirement is out of date now.  Until AI/Hyperion say anything different, I think you'll find that since then AmigaOS development has been all in the direction of porting to PPC and continuing on that platform.

[AmigaHeretic]

@pioneer

To Amiga_boy:

People like you are the delight of hardware manufacturers. You have to have the latest hardware, even though it doesn't make a bit of difference to what you're doing (games). Frankly I'm tired of the hardware snobs who are deluded enough to think they have the latest hardware (since something new comes out every day).

How do you know what peopl are doing with the hardware they are purchasing?  There are a lot more uses for computers than just games you know.

Sorry you're tired of people buying new hardware.  I'm sure you're still using the 1st computer you ever purchased and never bought new hardware.  

If something NEW comes out and I think I could use it or would enjoy using it (how dare I enjoy something) then yeah I'll probably buy it.  Does that make Hardware Manufacture's like me?  Probably.  That's the whole point right.  Companies keep coming up with new and cool things to sell?  You make it sound bad as if no new hardware should ever be made.  What's the point of being in the "Computing World" then.  Leave.

AmigaGuy

[JurassicCamper]

Buying new hardware keeps the second user market thriving as well.
How many people have bought something second hand because someone has upgrade.
The voodoo3 here in My Amiga1 is second hand.
My A4000 is now up for grabs as a result of me upgrading to an A1