Two New Full Systems Based on Sam440ep-Flex

[dammy]

Trevor has already said he's working on future models with Varisys.
The gestation period for a new machine when you're a small team is in the region of 2-3 years, further complicated by things like the Xena - so I'd class having two machines released in the last two years as being current. If we were using ARM chips we'd still have the same development time more or less - we don't all want portables, after all; some of us still want desktops and that's mostly unexplored territory for ARM.

My reply was about any announcements with hard tech information which, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to appear.  Small mobos prototyping should never take 2-3 years if the ODM is worth a damn. ARM has the one advantage that there are plenty of designs out there that anyone can take advantage of and have dev boards ready to go for porting in the matter of months if not weeks. Look at what Genesi has done with ARM systems.  Once the A16 is released, there is your desktop worthy ARM.

You have to admit that compared to the Dark Ages (i.e. between the end of the AmigaOne XE line and the arrival of the Sam), it's positively thriving. Nothing happened in those years hardware-wise. Now we only have two companies making new hardware, but that's still two more than we used to.

I don't count the netbook because we don't know anything except it's probably not new hardware.... this thread is about hardware.

I will point out that this community was multiple times larger during those "Dark Ages."  Had Hyperion ported OS4 to Pegs earlier, I doubt the SAMs would have been offered.  So here we sit and the total population world wide is probably down in the mid 4 digits vs mid 5 digits ten years ago, if not higher.   Once herald Amiga fairs drew hundreds and now if a couple of dozen show up, it's called a success.  The constant adding of new OS4 core devs draws attention to the fact the OS4 core dev pool is constantly losing proven talent.  The only hope I see is if Trevor spends a whole lot of money on designing and building cheap and powerful PPC systems that he will probably never see a return of investment on.  If he has deep enough pockets for the Amiga charity, more power to him.  As far as ACube is concern, I don't know where they are going to go from here if their embedded customer needs the 400 series as it's CPU core.

[Kremlar]

@ AmigaDave

When I checked earlier this evening, the OEM version of Windows7 Pro costs about $91 U.S. dollars, or 70.77 Euros. The "Home" version of Windows7 is cheaper, but most people that know anything about computers don't want the stripped down "Home" version, which is why I used the Pro version.

Just curious, where did you find Windows 7 Professional OEM so cheap?  Normal price through legit channels is typically $140 or so.

Also, what features are you using that are not available in Home Premium?

[takemehomegrandma]

Germans?

That was a really long flight!  I did not know they had perfected "In Flight Refueling" back in the 1940's, or that the "Germans" had an Aircraft Carrier fleet in the Pacific.

Had the WW2 continued 1-2 years longer without Germany's industries and resources being pounded as hard as it was by "the allies" during the later stages of the war, it's quite possible that Hitler would have Atom bombed New York though. OK, not exactly "Pearl Harbor", and it would have been a one-way/suicide trip for the pilot, but still...

[takemehomegrandma]

@ AmigaDave

Just curious, where did you find Windows 7 Professional OEM so cheap?  Normal price through legit channels is typically $140 or so.

Windows OEM can be *very* cheap, depending on reseller. Point is OEM shouldn't really be sold separately to consumers at all but only bundled with new computers (this is the very definition of OEM), but some does this anyway. Hence there are no real trustworthy comparable list prices on this, you have to search to find the best bargain, there can be big differencies. There are however restrictions in OEM versions of windows when it comes to upgrading the computer (new motherboard/CPU etc); the OEM Windows is kind of similar to the MorphOS license in this regard, it's tied to the HW it's supposed to be bundled with. My brother built himself a new PC (put it together from selected components) and tried to install his old OEM on it, but product activation failed. But then he simply called the support by phone and said his computer had broke down and the seller had replaced some parts because of original parts no longer existed (playing ignorant), and somehow MS support opened it up so he could register/authenticate windows on his new HW!

[killer]

Another great offer from Acube-Systems :-)

They already finished the batch of Sam440ep so if they produce a new batch, someone asked for it ;-) and i can guess that this someone is more than "some user" to justifiy a new batch and I am happy too because they are producing a new batch of Sam460ex too :-)

If they produce "someone" ask for it.. :-) ;-)

[kickstart]

Maybe "popular demand" is a nickname of someone.

[asymetrix]

@thread

If AmigaOS 4 was available for x86, that came with a FPGA on a card to simulate 68k/ AGA chipset and 68k games ran seemless via the fpga ..

2ghz, 2GB, 500gb hd sata, usb x4, amd gfx card 1gb

priced at £299

Would you call it an Amiga ?

if not, seriously what form would it take.

[Iggy]

WHS 2011 is $50, OEM.

That's how I obtained Win7. Home Server can be had for even less upon occasion.

[Iggy]

@thread
 
If AmigaOS 4 was available for x86, that came with a FPGA on a card to simulate 68k/ AGA chipset and 68k games ran seemless via the fpga ..
 
2ghz, 2GB, 500gb hd sata, usb x4, amd gfx card 1gb
 
priced at £299
 
Would you call it an Amiga ?
 
if not, seriously what form would it take.

Why would an FPGA be required?
AmigaForever runs fine on an X86.
 
Until OS4 supports SMP, I'd have a hard time justifying using it on an X86.
I haven't had an X86 with only one core in several years.
 
Would I call it an Amiga?
I'm so over that.

[persia]

@killer

There's no mention of a new batch of boards, just boards bundled inside cases, which they could easily do with existing boards.

[killer]

Here:

News from afxgroup

Bassano del Grappa, 29-Sept-2012,


At ACube Systems we love to do offers as soon as we can. While we wait for the new batch of - currently out of stock - Sam460 to be assembled, for the first 10 Flex Core systems purchased we offer a fully licensed copy AmigaOS 4.1. This is a more than 100 Euros/USD discount!

It's already Christmas in Amiga Land. Don't miss this opportunity!

Please visit ACube website for more information

[haywirepc]

I guess everyone should be happy that hw is still being made for os4 but sheesh... s - o      s - l - o - w

I guess its easy to get spoiled with a 3.4ghz aros box you got for 50 bucks on ebay. I hope they port to arm or x86 someday or its a dead end.

[takemehomegrandma]

@thread

If AmigaOS 4 ... ... ... Would you call it an Amiga ?

if not, seriously what form would it take.

Seriously? Well, Hyperion and Amiga Inc ****ed up the Amiga brand way too much, way beyond all recognition. IMO, thanks to them, Amiga (TM) today stands for crap, filthy politics, dirty law suits, lies, deceit, and substandard products at grotesque overprice. Hence the Amiga brand lost its relevance and meaning to me a long time ago. In fact, I can't connect emotionally to that anymore, I don't even want to feel being associated with it in any way, it feels filthy in a way. I'm happy to use anything else that gives me my Amiga fix, regardless of the sticker on the product. My interest in Amiga was never about brand stickers on the front anyway...

But to answer your question "what would it take" - OS4 would simply have to be taken out of the equation, as simple as that. There is too much non-Amiga code and non-Amiga philosophies in there, it has too low quality, too poor features, too poor Amiga compatibility, and is hard-welded to hardware whose combination of price, performance and features would have ensured it to have never even left the drawing board/product planning stage, if a normal, healthy logic would have been applied. Had I had one, I would definitely have felt a need to hide it away from everyone I know to avoid being labeled a goofy nutcase or something in their eyes. So all that would definitely have to go...

[Duce]

Man does this place suck, lol.  I figured this thread would go to hell in a handbasket, but I never thought I'd see a thread get so jacked that it starts resembling a religious holy war, with TMHG calling for Mass Extermination of OS4 products like Hitler did with the Jews....

Seeya around, A.org!  This place has become damned near useless.  Off to AW.net.

[phoenixkonsole]

There is too much non-Amiga code and non-Amiga philosophies in there, it has too low quality, too poor features, too poor Amiga compatibility, and is hard-welded to hardware whose combination of price, performance and features would have ensured it to have never even left the drawing board/product planning stage, if a normal, healthy logic would have been applied. Had I had one, I would definitely have felt a need to hide it away from everyone I know to avoid being labeled a goofy nutcase or something in their eyes. So all that would definitely have to go...

What does too poor Amiga compatibility mean? Has MorphOS a better backward compatibility? Since everything evolves it is logical to break with some "outdated" Amiga philosophy.

BTW.. AROS is MorphOS done right ; ) just to provocate a bit.

If your problem is that AmigaOS 4.1 doesn't run on cheap used HW... well it would be only a matter of one or two month to change it.  

The only bottleneck of AmigaOS 4.x is the management (no offense, just my personal pov)

[takemehomegrandma]

@phoenixkonsole

What does too poor Amiga compatibility mean? Has MorphOS a better backward compatibility?

Yes indeed it has, which a well known fact, and it comes from different focus from the very beginning. The MorphOS team always put backwards compatibility very high on the priority list, while OS4 team happily introduced things that affected compatibility in a negative way in the name of "evolution", sometimes unnecessarily so. This difference shows. Which is kind of funny, since MorphOS is also the more evolved one! :lol:

BTW.. AROS is MorphOS done right ; ) just to provocate a bit.

I get your provocation , but compared to MorphOS, what is AROS top features that you think beats it? Other than the benefits tied to x86 HW, I mean the OS itself?


@Duce

This thread fulfilled its purpose many pages ago already, and since then it branched into *numerous* discussions, which is OK and is what most discussion threads usually do when the Original Topic has been *covered in full*. I had nothing to do with that, it's a natural evolution of discussions. A question was asked what it would take to make you consider OS4 as being Amiga, and I (as others) replied. And here you are, talking about Hitler and the Holocaust of Jews!? :rolleyes:. Oh man, that was a new low level even coming from you. This is a discussion board, where you discuss things, exchange views, debate, etc. If you don't agree, then say so in the discussion, but please stop this pointless negative meta-discussion about discussions you are constantly doing all the time. Funny thing you bring up Hitler in one breath, and then you advocate a totalitarian fascist view that only unidirectional opinions should be allowed in the next breath. Was that a Freudian thing? Frankly, this seems to be all you do here these days, and frankly, indeed this behavior would perhaps indeed suit better on that other site...

:rolleyes: