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Offline spirantho

Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #44 from previous page: December 05, 2012, 09:39:24 PM »
@swift240

Quote from: swift240;717663
I have always said this about the Amiga, what it comes to an Amiga the price is realy sky high, when it comes to a PC the price is reasly afordable to every one.


It would be, though, wouldn't it? Millions of people buy PCs, hundreds (at best) buy Amigas - not because they're more expensive, but because there's no software for it.
Basic economies of scale: PCs = high production run = low unit cost; Amigas = low production run (owing to low demand) = high unit cost.

Quote

Is it the case of well if they want it they will bloody well pay for it?
Or a case of ohhhhh well you see, we have to do this and then we gota do that, then we gota do the other thing then we gota................. so the price will by HIGH like it or not.


Do you really think the makers of low-volume hardware want the computer to be this expensive?

Quote

Why not a affordable CPU that will not cost the earth that will handle an Amiga OS?


There already is one - the Sam 440ep. The X1000 isn't designed for this, it's designed to be the fastest computer possible at that time for people with enough cash. It's not for people who want "affordable" it's for people who want "the fastest for AmigaOS", and that meant at the time the PA6T. It's the same anywhere else - on a PC if you want the fastest you pay through the nose for it. Same on Mac. Same on everything.

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Or will this be another excuse ohhh well we cant do that.


It's not an excuse. It's simply that the Amiga market is very small, and there's not much money in it. We're lucky that there's anybody at all doing anything with it.

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Sorry I dont belive a word of it, there is enough technology out there to do that.


But not the right technology. Sure you can get cheap x86 CPUs but not cheap PPC CPUs (and that's an argument for another thread :) )

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And the price dont need to be sky high either.  But its the same old thing if its Amiga then the price will be lovely and high if its a PC then it wont.


Yes, the price does need to be high - at least if you don't want it to be a PC.

The Amiga is a niche market. It doesn't run 99.99% of software that people want to run, therefore most people don't want it. Demand is comparatively very low, therefore production runs also have to be very low.
If you're going to sell 10 million units in the first month like an Xbox or something, you can afford to produce 10 million components, but if you're only going to sell 50, you can only produce 50. That raises the unit cost for each part massively.

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To hell with this I am runnig in circles here, its cheaper to use my AMD and Amikit.


I agree with that! Using commodity (i.e. PC) hardware will naturally be much cheaper because the market is so much bigger.

Quote

But I wont get rid of my Amiga 1200 no matter what, so its either AMD and Amikit or pay a price thats so high I will need a jet plane to get to the top of it.


You're right about the A1200. :) If you don't want to buy an AOS 4 machine then no-one's forcing you to.

The way you wrote your post you make it sound like the people making OS4 machines are choosing to make it expensive? Yet it's well documented that in the case of the X1000, Trevor is actually subsidising the production!

Low volume hardware will always be much much more expensive than high volume commodity hardware, that's just the way of the world.

High prices are the sacrifice you make for being in a hobby that involves low production volumes - this isn't just for Amigas, it's for any hobby which involves low volume production runs.

The alternative is to do it the CUSA way - just take a cheap PC and stick an "Amiga" sticker on it and call it an Amiga.... but I'd much rather pay more and get something that is designed for and runs AmigaOS.
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Offline Tripitaka

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #45 on: December 05, 2012, 09:40:11 PM »
Quote from: lassie;717636
What 5 classic Amiga do you have :)


A500, A500+, A1200 (my first Amiga) and two CD32's. I have another A500 and an A1200 mobo that I need to get around to looking at at some point too, the A500 didn't boot and the A1200 has no rom's but I haven't had time to do anything about it.
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Offline Tripitaka

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #46 on: December 05, 2012, 09:41:36 PM »
Quote from: zylesea;717630
Well, I don't have a prob with that price of the X1000 since there are alternatives available.  My 250 EUR laptop from ebay may lack a certain name but is about as fast as the X1000. Why bother with that X1000 then?


Because it's the fastest OS4 machine money can buy.
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Offline Tripitaka

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #47 on: December 05, 2012, 09:45:34 PM »
Quote from: persia;717637
For 1800 quid you could buy at least 3 lenovo i7 laptops....

That's a total of 12 processors in three machines.  Course the X1000 does have two, one of whichyou can actually use....


A valid exercise in basic mathematics but ultimately irrelevant as none of them run OS4. If you sell two of them you could install AROS on the remaining one and buy a SAM for MorphOS and OS4 of course. That would be far more fun IMHO.
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Offline AmigaClassicRuleTopic starter

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #48 on: December 05, 2012, 10:14:43 PM »
Quote from: spirantho;717671
@swift240
 
 
 
It would be, though, wouldn't it? Millions of people buy PCs, hundreds (at best) buy Amigas - not because they're more expensive, but because there's no software for it.
Basic economies of scale: PCs = high production run = low unit cost; Amigas = low production run (owing to low demand) = high unit cost.
 
 
 
Do you really think the makers of low-volume hardware want the computer to be this expensive?
 
 
 
There already is one - the Sam 440ep. The X1000 isn't designed for this, it's designed to be the fastest computer possible at that time for people with enough cash. It's not for people who want "affordable" it's for people who want "the fastest for AmigaOS", and that meant at the time the PA6T. It's the same anywhere else - on a PC if you want the fastest you pay through the nose for it. Same on Mac. Same on everything.
 
 
 
It's not an excuse. It's simply that the Amiga market is very small, and there's not much money in it. We're lucky that there's anybody at all doing anything with it.
 
 
 
But not the right technology. Sure you can get cheap x86 CPUs but not cheap PPC CPUs (and that's an argument for another thread :) )
 
 
 
Yes, the price does need to be high - at least if you don't want it to be a PC.
 
The Amiga is a niche market. It doesn't run 99.99% of software that people want to run, therefore most people don't want it. Demand is comparatively very low, therefore production runs also have to be very low.
If you're going to sell 10 million units in the first month like an Xbox or something, you can afford to produce 10 million components, but if you're only going to sell 50, you can only produce 50. That raises the unit cost for each part massively.
 
 
 
I agree with that! Using commodity (i.e. PC) hardware will naturally be much cheaper because the market is so much bigger.
 
 
 
You're right about the A1200. :) If you don't want to buy an AOS 4 machine then no-one's forcing you to.
 
The way you wrote your post you make it sound like the people making OS4 machines are choosing to make it expensive? Yet it's well documented that in the case of the X1000, Trevor is actually subsidising the production!
 
Low volume hardware will always be much much more expensive than high volume commodity hardware, that's just the way of the world.
 
High prices are the sacrifice you make for being in a hobby that involves low production volumes - this isn't just for Amigas, it's for any hobby which involves low volume production runs.
 
The alternative is to do it the CUSA way - just take a cheap PC and stick an "Amiga" sticker on it and call it an Amiga.... but I'd much rather pay more and get something that is designed for and runs AmigaOS.

 
I AGREE with you 100% in everything you said, 100%!!!
 
That is why I am getting Sam440, it is like buying an Amiga 1200 instead of the A4000T for example. The system never changed in the way Amiga distribute it's machines, just the motherboard and software changed that is all.
 
That is why there was an Amiga 500, 500+, 600 and 1200. For people who could not afford A2000, 3000, and the 4000.
 
By the way I am not getting the SAM yet, not until I am done with my A1200 modification and seal it. Need to get the apollo 1260, get the FastIDE from AmigaKit, and get the WiFi working, upgrade the HD to 500 GB (so it can hold lots of movies for me) and update the filesystem and upgrade the OS on it with all the boingball updates.
 
When it is finished, then I will get SAM, then I have finalized all my Amiga hardware collections, what is left is put into software and not hardware.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 10:20:55 PM by AmigaClassicRule »
 

Offline Tripitaka

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #49 on: December 05, 2012, 10:37:47 PM »
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;717680

That is why I am getting Sam440, it is like buying an Amiga 1200 instead of the A4000T for example. The system never changed in the way Amiga distribute it's machines, just the motherboard and software changed that is all.
 
That is why there was an Amiga 500, 500+, 600 and 1200. For people who could not afford A2000, 3000, and the 4000.


That's the attitude. Truth is, I'll probably end up with a SAM too because I doubt if my patience will hold up whilst I save up for an X1000. Then again, I could put an external floppy drive on ebay for £1800 and see if anyone buys it. ;)
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Offline _ThEcRoW

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #50 on: December 05, 2012, 11:05:21 PM »
Of course they want it to be expensive!. If it wasn't the case they would have released moana, but instead, you have to buy an overpriced board.

Quote from: spirantho;717671
@swift240

Do you really think the makers of low-volume hardware want the computer to be this expensive?
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Offline spirantho

Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #51 on: December 06, 2012, 08:08:38 AM »
Dropping Moana was nothing to do with price.
If they'd let Moana out then we'd still be stuck with Macs with stuff like PCI and AGP,  as there'd be NO new hardware, even for those who wanted it.
It was necessary to stop Moana as it was in the wrong direction... that of new Amigas in hardware as well as software.

Why would they want it to be expensive? It's not in their interest to be expensive, they make very little money off it. They want it to be cheap so that more people buy it to increase numbers of users.

When you see the OS4 people driving Ferraris, then you can accuse them of deliberately pricing high, but I assure you... it's not going to happen on the small profit margins these guys have.
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Offline zylesea

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #52 on: December 06, 2012, 12:54:24 PM »
Quote from: Tripitaka;717669
Does your laptop run OS4? Of course it doesn't.

Well, no. And I don't miss it.Quite the contrary: I have a very good and pretty matured alternative amigaish OS for that machine that runs all my old 68k legacy software OS-natively as well as quite some new software. I think it's just cool. But I understand that there are some ppl who prefer OS4 - but those have to deal with the limited hardware offers. Complaining isn't leading forward though. Deal with it or look for alternatives.

Offline persia

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #53 on: December 06, 2012, 01:27:47 PM »
@zylesea

Exactly, there is no compelling reason to go to OS4.1, all the Amiga software I run is classic which is happy in a classic machine or Amiga Forever (which uses the same emulator for classic that OS4.1 does).  Most of the new 4.1 apps are ports of Linux open source software.  So what do I need the Apple chip in the X1000 for?

I can program an XMOS microprocessor better using a USD99 board on a PC than I can on the X1000.  

Now what might be interesting is to pick up the abandoned PearPC code and try to make an emulator for 4.1, but I just don't have the programming skills for that....
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Offline wawrzon

Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #54 on: December 06, 2012, 02:03:15 PM »
Quote from: Tripitaka;717674
...ultimately irrelevant as none of them run OS4...

which is one of those strange justifications os4 always post. it looks like must be most fun to run operating system as such. sit in front of it and lookt at it till it crashes. because there is almost no native software for this so called operating system. all there is come from amiga (68k), linux and morphos, and in each case you will find either faster or cheaper solution to run the software on the system it originates from. perhaps even both if we exclude 68k.

Quote
Because it's the fastest OS4 machine money can buy.

thats like buying a fastest car on earth there is no fuel for, and pushing it around the block every sunday so that people may see. its entirely either ego or items collecting issue. may be some need that.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2012, 02:05:30 PM by wawrzon »
 

Offline eliyahu

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #55 on: December 06, 2012, 02:32:30 PM »
@wawrzon

there is tons of native OS4 software. enough with the gratuitous bashing, please.

@thread

guys, this thread is starting to head downhill rather fast. please keep your comments in line with the original intention of the OP. this thread isn't a place to settle scores. we've got plenty of those already. :griping:

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Offline wawrzon

Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #56 on: December 06, 2012, 03:00:34 PM »
Quote
there is tons of native OS4 software.
digital universe, sketchbook and filer.

... forgot the softsynth util from lyle.
 

Offline Blinx123

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #57 on: December 06, 2012, 03:18:24 PM »
Personally, I'd very much like to own an Amiga OS 4.1 computer.
Not because of the software that is already available but for the software I and others can port to it.

It seems like a rather pleasent market with very few, if any, competition. This alone probably makes it more fun to code than for say Windows, iOS or Android, where there are hundreds of thousands of new apps every year.
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Offline spirantho

Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #58 on: December 06, 2012, 03:26:28 PM »
@Blinx123

AmigaOS 4 is my favourite platform for coding by far. The advances made to the API since 3.x are very useful, and really help. They've done some very good work under the hood that the average user doesn't see, but as a developer I definitely see. I've also coded for Windows (gurrrrgggghhhh) and Android (not too bad, but a bit idiosyncratic at times - and you have to use Java). Not used iOS.

If you like developing stuff, I can thoroughly recommend OS4, but you may want to get a little Sam as a taster before taking the plunge on the expensive ones.
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Offline Blinx123

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Re: AmigaOne is out of my budget league
« Reply #59 on: December 06, 2012, 04:02:02 PM »
@spirantho

Thanks for the input.

Yea. I'll most likely go with a SAM first.
I still got high hopes that, some day, someone will port AmigaOS 4.1 to the PowerMac G5, since this is the next piece of hardware I'll be getting (hopefully, the MorphOS bounty has been finished by someone by then).
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