What Amiga product do *YOU* would want. Please read.

[Warface]

A handheld Amiga 1200 clone with a 320x200 lcd display, and a small HDD (a few gigs) which is able to boot and play games from ADFs, utilising the thousand games which are out: the old software base in a new wrapping. Having an USB connector, probably with TV out, builtin CD32 joypad and infrared/bluetooth multiplayer options (emulating the second joyport this way).

Now that would be nice for a competitive price.

My 2 eurocents :-)

[AmigaMac]

What would be nice is for someone to fill the void to true mobile solutions for the Amiga.  It being a laptop and/or PDA.

I still think that the AmigaOne/Pegasos efforts should not be eclipsed by other efforts until they have reached a foothold in the market.  I personally believe that AmigaOS 4.2 should be the candidate for mass market instead of AmigaOS 5.

my 2 cents

 :-D

[TheMagicM]

yes..a classic Amiga laptop WOULD be cool.  that would be so awesome.  A A1200 would be ok, as long as it played all of the old games.

[Dr.Bongo]

I would like to see a return to the Amiga. I honestly don`t feel that the newer attempts really are, they just don`t feel the same! (am I being too nostalgic?)

[smithy]

what product would YOU like to see?

Good software!

[Belial6]

Ok, maybe I'm thinking outside the box, or maybe someone slipped me some crack, but what I would like to see is an amiga to PC bridge / Emulater adaptor.

I don't mean a bridge card like C= offered, I mean a connecter that would plug into the Zorro, PCI, or whatever on the Amiga, and the other end plug into a PCI socket on a PC.  From there the Driver and emulator writers could do whatever they want.  

Via makes some nice mini-atx motherboards that when loaded with the right software, would basically be a large add in card.  Some even without fans.

Here is how I would see it working:
Write a driver on the Amiga to access the vCard. (Virtual Card)
Load linux onto the PC.
Write a driver that gives access to your application via the PCI port that is connected to the Amiga.

So, if you want a wireless/gigabit network card, you write a PC driver works with the aleady existing linux software router.  Tada!  One driver works with every network card that the Linux community is supporting.

Want a 3d grafics card?  Write one driver, and you have support for every 3d grafics card that the Linux community supports.

Want a 300gig hard drive?  USB 2.0 support?  Firewire?  Scanners?  If the Linux community supports them, a generic driver can be written that would support any brand make or model.  (Obviously a different driver would be needed for each class of hardware.)

This could work just as easily for emulation on the PC side.  Do you want a super fast 68040 accelorator card?  A driver and hack to UAE, and it's a PCI accelorator card.  Heck, there is no reason that you couldn't even add a command that would allow the Amiga to change which CPU the accelorator is acting as.

Benefits to your company include:
*Your cost of development would be limited to a handful of interfaces.  As little as one.
*The same technique could be applied to PC and Mac products for added revenue.
*Once the PC board is purchase by the customer, your product gives them an almost unlimited amount of inexpensive expandability.  (Many people may even have a spare PC laying around that they could use at no extra cost)
*Solves the PCI "problem".
*Leverages the huge Linux community to add capabilities to the Amiga.
*Offers a great deal of flexability to the end user.  Do they want a low power EPIA based fanless "vCard", or do they want one in it's own case that runs at a blistering 3 ghz?
*Your solution gains power at exactly the same rate that PC solution do.
*Your solution should be fairly simple, so it could be developed relatively quickly, and at a relatively low cost.

There is no reason that multiple bride cards couldn't be used to allow for multiple devices in a single add-on PC  Just bridge to different PCI ports on the PC.

Does this sound like the rambalings of a man who was hit too hard in the head?

[Matt_H]

I think getting the Blizzard 2604 (A2000 PPC board) into production would be a great idea. 2000s are cheap and easy to find, and with a board like this, the OS4/MorphOS market could be expanded onto a much wider user base. The board also has the same expansion slot as the Cyberstorm PPC, so the CVPPC or Grex could be connected, too (electronically, at least).

Best part of all is that the R&D designs are (I *think*) done. You'd just need to get them from DCE.

Other suggestions:
Combination Zorro/PCI bus for 1200Ts (cheaper than Z4+Mediator)
More scandoublers
1200 style case for MicroA1 (and Peg2?)

[Ilwrath]

Does this sound like the rambalings of a man who was hit too hard in the head?

Well, IMHO, it's both ingenious and crazed.  But, if you take the idea one step further, I say it was already attempted.  The best project of post 2000 Amiga community, and it was killed by greed and politics.  

Here's the thing...  You've essentially got a low-powered computer (Original Amiga) acting as a front end for a slave high-powered processing machine (the PC)  The interface would probably cause a bit of a bottleneck.  Plus, essentially, you'd just be using the classic Amiga as a front-end.  

You've already got a high powered PC sitting there.  Why don't you just virtualize the Amiga front end on it?  It wouldn't cause much of a performance hit.  Then you can run with totally off-the-shelf hardware.  

I present you with Amithlon.  Our dreams crushed.  :-(

[Turambar]

How about an RTG amiga (like draco) on a mini-itx or smaller board with on board graphics and sound.

Other than that the old custom chips on a pci card for peg/A1 sounds good.

Hmm if both are possible combine the two and make a mini-itx classic amiga \o/

[angrybrit]

I just want an Amiga 3000UX bundle. :-D

[George]

What would I like to see?
A flicker-fixer for the A1200 (internal or external) that flickerfixes *all* video modes, as in whatever is thrown at it. All the ones currently available only seem to fix the standard PAL/NTSC ones included in the OS, but I use a non-sandard mode, and my eyes start to hurt after extended use of my amiga :-/

[takemehomegrandma]

redrumloa wrote:

since the few classics still not in the closet are probably dying in an increasing pase.

This is our thoughts. Why are the classics getting neglected? The is no good new product out there, or the price is unreasonable.

Well, the classic Amigas are dying of age one after another. No new classic amigas has been produced for ages. Perhaps this is where to start, producing a new "Amiga"? It will desperately need updated specifications though. Perhaps the old BoXeR design could be acquired to get a flying start? ;-)

[jeffimix]

I wouldn't object to an external  tv modulator. But even better would be something that accepts firewire DV in... I know Amiga bus can't handle the Firewire's raw info rate, but maybe there's a way to use onboard compression over the video slot or some such?

[Tomas]

I would like a new classic compitable system, for  playing classic Amiga games in case similar to a600 and similar, or laptop like  :-D Is hard to get hold of working amiga's at a decent price this days..

I also would like to see some tv modulators, as it is impossible to get them today.. I contacted a few amigashops but none of them can get hold of them, which means i will be stuck with b/w on my good old a500   :boohoo:

[amigean]

hello

a new 68K-based amiga motherboard with respectable RTG graphics, AHI sound and WHDLoad bundled is bound to cause some stir among us enthusiasts (particularly if the price is right)!

As said before, the BoXer would be great , but anything would do....

new accelerators is what many people seem to be after - whether it is for the A500 (I want a Viper 530!!), A2000 or 3/4Ks - perhaps some kind of modular 'universal solution' based on Zorro I for the A500 and working its way upwards may be a good idea - though demanding in terms of R&D

Dreaming aside, real life economics really limit the feasible hardware options - there are just not enough of us

Red's best bet (depending on the resources at his disposal) would be to approach an existing, or defunct amiga hw project and secure a deal - improving it along the way

whatever you decide Red - good luck!

[billt]

I tried posting htis earlier but didn't see it show up, so I musta hit preview and thought it was submitted...

I'd love to se a G3/G4 accelerator for my A4000T (Quikpak style) to put more life into it. Though I am going to have an AmigaOne as well. Perhaps an accelerator with a Megarray socket to share CPU module design with the AmigaOne...

A PCI bridge with an AGP slot (as well as Zorro and maybe one video slot if you want but I'd rather have PCI/AGP slots myself) that directly replaces the Zorro /ISA/Video slot riser cards in the desktop A3000/4000. One of the Mediators does this in A4000D, but not for my A3000D. :/ Then we could put the covers back on and use PCI cards without stuff sticking above the top of the machine preventing it from being closed up. And variations that fit original tower versions of A3000/4000 and something for A1200 users. I realize classics can't keep up with AGP speed, I'd just like functional use as AGP cards are more convenient to shop for and may offer more features than their PCI counterparts, such as the Radeon AllInWonder cards that include TV tuner/outputs not found on harder to find PCI Radeons.

And finally, a Buster replacement that could increase bus speeds beyond the available Buster 11 chips. A small FPGA board fitting intot he socket should be relatively easy to do, and SMT sockets can be fixed to boards currently having SMT Busters, making it possible to put the board in these machines as well as into socketed A3000 types.  We could have more performance from aging machines this way and get faster PCI card accesses via the Amiga bus as well as fom Zorro3 native cards...

All designs with firmware ugradable FPGAs (SRAM FPGA with configuration EEPROM) to allow bug fixes and other enhancements via internet download and floppy disk program to re-burn the EEPROM/FLASH type thing, rather than sending board in for upgrading that can take a long time.