takemehomegrandma wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
No industrial customers? How the heck would you know? Are you privy to ACube's business dealings? Their business plan? No, you're not. So you really don't know.
Outside the Amiga community there is this thing called "competition", where a great deal of options are available at very attractive prices from many, many producers. That any "industrial customer" (whatever that is) would choose the Sam in its current shape, form and price over anything (whatever) else that is available from everywhere is highly unlikely.
In your opinion. Look, as an engineer, I know about the myriads of different hardware available in different form factors, so don't be so condescending. Past announcements said that they were available to
select industrial customers; it has space for a zigbee module, which is not used by desktop systems. Just because
you don't see anyone buying it for industry doesn't mean that industrial customers see it that way. Do you work in industry? Are you responsible for purchasing computer hardware for machine/process control? I'm guessing that you're not.
... They will perhaps sell some 50-150 boards to OS4 nerds ready to pay premium price simply because it's the only way of running OS4, and because it has a similar component ("The Incredible FPGA") that someone made a MiniMig of and Jens Schönfeld made something else of (ie some kind of geek cool factor). ...
And now you're just being directly insulting and demeaning to the whole OS4 community. So typical.
No I'm not. [/quote]
And I quote:
"OS4 nerds". If it were simply about the facts, you wouldn't have used that term with negative connotations.
And what could that be in your opinion, that a "real" controller of the same sort couldn't do better and cheaper? I mean, until anyone figure out what the h-ll the thing could be used for, I still think it shouldn't be there. Specifications must come from a real market demand, you can't do it the other way around. They should have put it on an optional PCI daughter card or whatever.
FPGAs have a lot of uses. I have no idea what the capabilities of the one on the SAM board are, but FPGAs can do tasks that a CPU can do faster and cheaper. There are FPGAs that can perform more calculations per second than a DSP. Moreover, it's useful to perform interfacing to custom hardware (of which industrial systems can have plenty).
But I can't understand why they persist in using the 440 in a *desktop design*? It's misplaced in that context!
Firstly, you're the one asserting that it's a desktop design.
But open your eyes and look at it. It's a board made in a desktop standard form factor, having the same standard desktop connectors and expandability options, using the same standard PC controllers that you find in any standard Dell PC. But the Dell PC would be at a fraction of the cost and have ten times the performance.
It's a Desktop Amiga. That's what it is.[/quote]
A desktop machine does not have a zigbee module, mini-PCI, FPGAs, etc. Open
your eyes. Yes it's in a Mini-ITX form factor, but they are, in fact used in
industrial settings too. There's no point in using Compact-PCI hardware everywhere (BTW, a lot of Compact-PCI hardware makes the SAM 440ep look like a bargain). Likewise, in some situations using a PLC instead of PC hardware makes more sense.
The issue isn't about motherboard designing, it's about business development.
The development costs and limitations of available hardware has to be taken into account in any business plan. That's why no-one can design a motherboard that is just for the Amiga market. Eyetech failed in getting industrial customers because they chose a design with bugs and couldn't get Linux running reliably. Added to that, their's really was a desktop motherboard.
Unless you work in industry and actually buy hardware, you don't know what their requirements/prices actually are. Do you really think that you know more about designing, building and selling computer hardware than the design engineers and business people working in that industry?
Hans
