SciTech and Hyperion enter strategic partnership

[mr_homm]

One thing that surprises me is that no one has mentioned an indirect benefit that the support for these old cards may have.  Part of Eyetech's business involves embedded systems based on old Amiga boards.  Since those are now in short supply, they need something to replace them, and of course they would prefer to stay with the familiar AOS.  In fact, this is clearly part of their motivation to promote the AmigaOne.

The PPC (especially the lower powered = fanless cpu) based Teron board with AOS4 is a nearly drop-in replacement for the old Amiga boards with AOS, just more modern.  That means that one of the larger customers for A1G3-SE boards may be Eyetech themselves, to supply their embedded market.

Therefore, these drivers for lots of different graphics chips might be exactly what they need for their embedded device business, where they won't be using modern high-powered (=hot && need fans) graphics cards.

Right now, any companies that remain in the Amiga market are mostly supported by their NON-Amiga-desktop business:   Hyperion is porting games to other platforms, Eyetech has their embedded business, Amiga Inc. is living on DE*, and Genesi is looking into STBs and Home entertainment servers.**
.
*I know, I know... there are various opinions on whether they are alive, whether DE produces any cash flow, or whether they have any relevance at all.  I'm just using them as another example.

**Again, there are various opinions on their relevance, but I'm just citing them as another example.

My point is that anything that helps support the outside (= profitable) business of one of these companies is a stabilizing influence on their Amiga business, which should be good for us all.   Maybe (well, there is a slight chance) increasing the sales volume of MAI's boards could cause the price to drop a bit.  I really don't know how the volume Eyetech does (or will do) compares with, for instance Teron sales due to the availability of Yellow Dog Linux on Teron boards.

Anyway, it seems like good news, although I'm not personally overexcited by it.

--mr-homm

[ksk]

I want the OS, not just those announcements.

I estimate that at the end of March I buy my next new computer. The main requirement: AmigaOS like OS.

[System]

Excellent news!
Since the first time I read an announcement from Hyperion, I believed in them. And this is another reason for me to think I'm right.

For those, complaining the new Amiga won't be no Amiga anymore I find the following quote very important

Hyperion is currently working on AmigaOS 4.0, a vastly enhanced PPC native incarnation of the groundbreaking OS introduced by Commodore in
1985.

A vastly enhanced OS must be different from its previous version. The IT market is the fastest changing market we can find. Changes and "mutations" (if we can call them like that) are part of this market and of "our" Amiga. Compare the Amiga 500 to the Amiga 4000T and the OS1.3 to OS3.1.
To me, the AmigaOne with AmigaOS4.0 is the greatest Amiga ever. And the next system I am going to buy.
Go on, Hyperion!!!

[whabang]

####ing great!!!

Hyperion has managed to do what AInc failed to do:
To get a partner to write something about the deal on their OWN web-site! :-D

[ksk]

@whabang
>Hyperion has managed to do what AInc failed to do:
>To get a partner to write something about the deal
>on their OWN web-site!

Sendo announced the Amiga deal on their main pages.
Nokia announced the Amiga deal on their official developer web site.
Microsoft have announced/written about Amiga things.
etc...

(IIRC, Sharp used Amiga stickers and mentioned only intent on their web sites)

[whabang]

@ksk
Never noticed. OK, I was wrong then... :-)

[trgse]

there is no indication that this will be included with 4.0 since it states 4.x it is more likely that the drivers will be ported a bit at a time
(probably depending on several factors) the first
drivers might not even appear in 4.0 but in 4.2.

noticed that a couple of manufacturers was absent
(KRYO and TI to mention two).

[Eric_Z]

I want more support MORE I TELL YOU!!!! ;-)

But honestly trgse are you dissapointed with the current list?
(that being said, I have to admit that the "greedy" parts of me would like to have ATI fire GL card support and support for other pro cards)

But all in all if this partnership is productive, this is good news indeed.

[hnl_dk]

trgse wrote:

there is no indication that this will be included with 4.0 since it states 4.x it is more likely that the drivers will be ported a bit at a time
(probably depending on several factors) the first
drivers might not even appear in 4.0 but in 4.2.

noticed that a couple of manufacturers was absent
(KRYO and TI to mention two).

It's not important that it will be included in AmigaOS 4.0 ... as it will work as a "driver" for P96 (as UAEgfx) it will not be needed to change P96 to use it ... so if AmigaOS 4.0 get released without it, then it could get included,  just by downloading that part (could be BB1) ... just my own thoughts - think I'm right ... but maybe it will be included in AmigaOS 4.0 as Hyperion "only" need to make the virtual driver for P96 ... the SNAP drivers will be the same as for PPC-Linux :-D And those should only need to be compiled for PPC :-o

[samo79]

This is superb news!!
I was love Hyperion and now I love them more then in the past !!....because he don't speach more....he Work hard and superbly!.....

W Hyperion !! amd W Amiga Inc. also....

samo79

http://digilander.libero.it/samo79

[Gryfon]

Kyro II's have been noticeably absent from local stores for some time now...the low end GeForce 3's have been oustselling them for months.   Not a greate loss that they're not supported, although I suppose a lot of people have Kyro based graphics cards out there....

[Kay]

What seemed to be a good move at first, is now increasingly looking like a brilliant one. At first I saw just the list of currently supported cards, and it looked quite nice. But when considering what this also means for future graphics card support, and how it makes AOS4 a lot more viable in the embedded market, the true importance of this announcement starts to sink in. Hyperion has just solved the entire problem of 2d graphics card support for AmigaOS4, not only for now, but for quite some time.

Way to go, Hyperion! Looking forward to seing this damn thing released! ;-)

Kay

[Rogue]

Joanna, what part of "os-agnostic" didn't you understand.

Next thing you are telling me is that XFree86 is x86 too, right?

No, it doesn't slow things down. Stop making these things up  :-)

[whabang]

although I suppose a lot of people have Kyro based graphics cards out there....

Oh, yeah. That ol' baby hasn't failed me yet.
Not a very good performer anymore, but it'll do for most games ( UT 2003 runs like a dream ).

[Herewegoagain]

noticed that a couple of manufacturers was absent

Yeah.  Maybe they will be supported at some point.  There is also no support for SIS Xaber chips, but with all of the others listed there, its hard to not be excited over the one's that are supported.

[ACE]

Did everyone notice the mobile GFX chipsets supported in there.  One step closer to my dream, a laptop Amiga, efficent operating system, PPC chips with low power requirements.  Come on you hardware people give me, no give the world what they've been waiting for...

...er sorry!  :-D