Questions for you (amiga-project)

[TheMagicM]

Not negative....just asking a few questions which may sound like it.

#2: Using AOS or MOS...

What is the purpose of using MOS ?  The Pegasos IMHO would be a better choice of hardware.   Why use OS4? Are you trying to make a cheaper alternative to the A1?

I still do not understand the purpose of this new system.  The Pegasos I, II and A1 are truly great pieces of hardware.

Why not be a software development group?  Port a web browser, some games  etc?  

[minator]

1. Should this project go for a normal ATX PPC motherboard with PowerVR gfx custom chips or its own motherboard?

Adding a slot for Gfx cards does give the advantage of using different tech, or upgrades.

2.  Should this new so-called Amiga, use AmigaOS v4 or MorphOS?

I'd talk to the developers first.

3.  Should this new Amiga have Zorro slots, or not?

No.

4.  Would you like to see Amiga connectors for ZipStick compatibility and Amiga mouse comp.?

What is ZipStick?

5. What sort of Amiga keyboard connector is the best sollution? USB only support? PS/2 alike connector like on Amiga 4000? PS/2 connector?

USB, PS/2 is obsolete.

6.  How should this Amiga keyboard be? 96 keys like before, or PC alike form?

Just use a PC keyboard.

7.  Should we go for PowerVR 2 or PowerVR 3 for the prototype?

I'm still wondering about the PowerVR, there were screenshots in the other thread but my first generation Radeon is vastly better quality and it's nearly 3 generations behind!

8.  What sort of tower sollutions should we use? We want to continue Amiga 4000 T design and go further with this. Is this bad, or good?

I wouldn't copy anyone elses design.

9.  What price would you give for such Amiga?

I'd put good money on the average desired price beign several times lower than the manufacturing cost.

10. We've come up with Amiga 5200, Amiga 5600 and even Amiga 6000. What should the name be of this new Amiga?

Omega O 5000

11.  Is Amiga NeXT a bad or good name for this project?

I think there's a few answers to this one already...

12.  Any comment? What sort of companies would be interested in this project?

Probably not many.

12.(B) How about Dreamcast game compatibility? The option to use DC controllers for this "new" entertaining Amiga?

Expensive, difficult and er, Why?

Why not add Amiga games compatibility?  You'll need a big CPU and a license to Amiga Forever, you might actually sell a few of those...

[Neo]

Damit! Double post. (Should not use the back button)

>1. Should this project go for a normal ATX PPC motherboard with PowerVR gfx custom chips or its own motherboard?

Go ATX, cases and power supplies are thus cheap and plentiful.

>2. Should this new so-called Amiga, use AmigaOS v4 or MorphOS?

Either, or both. I'm personally more interested in AmigaOS4.

>3. Should this new Amiga have Zorro slots, or not?

No Zorro. Compared to other things you can get today, Zorro is OLD, SLOW, EXPENSIVE, and "available" cards are few today and most cards people have laying around are likely aging and will need replaced soonish anyway. It's not worth the expense or trouble.

>4. Would you like to see Amiga connectors for ZipStick compatibility and Amiga mouse comp.?

Don't particularly care about Amiga Mouse connector, PS/2 or USB should be fine. Have no idea what ZipStick is, so I guess I won't miss it if it's missing.

>5. What sort of Amiga keyboard connector is the best sollution? USB only support? PS/2 alike connector like on Amiga 4000? PS/2 connector?

Either USB or true PS/2, as such keyboards are cheap and plentiful. Don't use the A4000 style, it's just a different connector with the standard Amiga signaling which uses the CIAs to talk to the computer. All the recent PC keyboards I have bought in the last few years are all USB native but come with a USB->PS/2 adaptor. I use them as PS/2 with the adaptor.

>6. How should this Amiga keyboard be? 96 keys like before, or PC alike form?

Just find a good PC keyboard out there and get special keycaps printed if you want. A custom made keyboard won't be worth the money probably. I currently share my PC keyboard with my 4000T via a PS/2 adaptor, and the extra keys from PC land are convenient to have. Besides, I only ever saw one or two programs actually use the Help key, so don't miss that at all.

>7. Should we go for PowerVR 2 or PowerVR 3 for the prototype?

I thought you wanted make some custom chips, that you did NOT have any interest whatsoever to use off the shelf PC parts?! What does a Kyro (II) give you that a more modern and with more features Radeon or NVidia chip doesn't?? How does a Kyro have more of your "Amiga feeling" than any other PC graphics chip?? I've had my PicassoIV with the Cirrus 5446 for q number of years now, and don't miss the AGA look at all. Whatever, go with the newest/better feature set.

>8. What sort of tower sollutions should we use? We want to continue Amiga 4000 T design and go further with this. Is this bad, or good?

I have an A4000T built by Quikpak. I **HATE** this tower case. It's a pain to take apart and put back together, you have to lay it on its side when open, you have to lay it on its side to do the opening... My PC case by Antec lets me leave the thing where it is, just pop the side off and tinker inside, it's much easier to deal with. If you want to pick a particular case, please make it one that is easy to get in and out of, make sure that an expansion card packed with connectors is easy to get in and out (A different PC case forced me to unscrew and slide back the motherboard to put my Radeon AllInWonder 8500DV in and out as the connectors on it hit part of the case if the motherboard wasn't moved, VERY BAD case design there too)


>9. What price would you give for such Amiga?

Depending on if you choose OS4 or MorphOS, don't price significantly higher than the current AmigaOne or Pegasos that your OS of choice runs on. If you go too much higher than that, people will buy the AmigaOne/Pegasos instead. Even though you want to put a middle-aged chip on your motherboard, I'd probably disable it and use my spare Radeon card anyway, which recently came out of my PC in favor of a newer/faster Radeon for Final Fantasy XI's use, as I don't understand why I would think PowerVR is better or more "Amiga like feeling" than my Radeon 8500DV card.

>10. We've come up with Amiga 5200, Amiga 5600 and even Amiga 6000. What should the name be of this new Amiga?

It's your product, get a license for the Amiga name and it's your decision what number to put next to it.

>11. Is Amiga NeXT a bad or good name for this project?

You've got two tradmarks there to sort out... I personally don't like it, it'll eventually be replaced by something, what will that be called, Amiga NeXT 2, NeXT NeXT, I also do not like year-based names such as Windows95/98/2000, Picasso96, etc. so please don't make an Amiga 2004...

>12. Any comment? What sort of companies would be interested in this project? How about Dreamcast game compatibility? The option to use DC controllers for this "new" entertaining Amiga?

If I wanted Dreamcast game compatibility, I'd buy a Dreamcast. Making your computer DC compatible would take longer and be more expensive than to check if there's already a software emulator out there that you could port, and wouldn't be useful to most Amiga users. DC controllers, I don't see much DC stuff in stores these days for me to buy them. I'd rather be able to use a nice easy to get PC USB pad, or perhaps Playstation pad. Personally, I'm very weary of the good old Amiga way of having to pay literally 10 times the price for anything at all compared to the equivalent PC product, that's an Amiga "feel" I won't miss. I'll pay 10x for the motherboard, but then hopefully everything else will be a reasoable comparison to PC stuff, price-wise. I'm not going to pay tons for a special Amiga keyboard when a perfectly suitable PC keyboard only costs US$15 or so. I'm not going to pay lots and lots and lots for a special custom graphics chip (made from an off-the-shelf PC PowerVR chip??) that's already middle-aged in computer time, when a newer and faster and more featured chip costs less. (Compare current Radeon prices to the US$550 I paid for PicassoIV) I'm sure as heck not going to pay big bucks for a custom case or power supply, I'd probably want a different case anyway, and an easy/inexpensive to replace power supply for when the original fails. And I like the nice Logitec cordless mouse withthe extra buttons, which only comes in USB/PS/2 (native USB with PS/2 adaptor again) and not in Amiga mouse connector form, though I do seem to have a spare PS/2->Amiga mouse adaptor laying around, but why not just have that built into the motherboard at this point??

[that_punk_guy]

OT:

Worryingly few people in this thread know what a Zipstick is. It is the Amiga joystick, ladies and gentlemen!

[bloodline]

that_punk_guy wrote:
OT:

Worryingly few people in this thread know what a Zipstick is. It is the Amiga joystick, ladies and gentlemen!

Nah... I had a Cheetah 123... and then a Jet fighter thingie.

[Doobrey]

AmiDelf wrote:
Negative responces to this will be ignored.

 Why?? not listening to criticism has been the downfall of many companies and lead to many bad products.
Don`t dismiss them just because you don`t like what is said.
Anyway, onto the answers.

1. Stick to a standard form factor, it gives end users more choices of case. But why does the Power VR chip have to be on the motherboard? Integrated gfx chips share system memory which always limits their performance.

2. OS4 or MOS?? Depends if you can get a licence for either..

3. Ditch Zorro slots, far too slow and outdated. Fast enought for a 68k machine, but not a PPC one.

4.Amiga gameports..why?? Since there`s no amiga chipset, many old games etc won`t run on this machine anyway.
But maybe an adapter to plug them into an analogue gameport.

5. USB and PS2.

6. Hate to say this, but use a standard PC keyboard..
 Let the end users have a choice in case/keyboard and mouse..

7. Why stick to PowerVR? whats wrong with an OEM AGP card..or at a push a PCI one?

8. The A4000T case is probably waaaaaaay too big for the average user. See the answer to Q6.

9.
What price would you give for such Amiga?
 Dunno.. everything you suggest just screams "custom made,small production run" which means bloody expensive.
 For a motherboard+CPU bundle, I wouldn`t pay much more than the price of a Peg II.

10.What should the name be of this new Amiga?
  The Amiga 1/2  ;-)

11. Bad..

12. Leave the DC controller to an add-on adapter.
Forget about direct DC game compatibility..that`s what emulators are for.

Make the motherboard as simple as possible, don`t go adding stuff that only a few users will want, you can always make it an optional add-on module.
 Try and keep the custom stuff to a minimum, and use "off the shelf" parts wherever possible, it`ll lower development time, and lower the end price too.
Otherwise by the time it`s released, it`ll be as outdated as a A500 is now, and the cost will drive people away.

[graffias79]

Hmm about the DC compatibility:  Good luck getting the Proprietary Yamaha GD-ROM disks to read in standard CD-ROM drives or DVD-ROM drives, since the GD disks are not compatible with either format.   I wish I could back up my DC games, though. :-( :-(

[Jose]

I currently don't have time to read the whole thread but if you're serious about this then you should try to get the AAA design. There was much stuff already done, and this would make a lot of democoders  happy. I'm not into electronics at all but he design of the AAAchipset could be used on a PCI card from what I recall from old discussions about this. The demoscene  and retro lovers alone would be the only market for it in my opinion. Maybe some other very little niche stuff... The Amiga's copper is unique and would allow stuff like dgraggable screens. Maybe some future AOS4, MOS users want that feature. Maybe there are also very interesting gfx effects that are more easily achieved with the Amiga chipset also...
By the way, I think AAA was to be compatible with ECS only and not AGA, but after all time that has passed so many demos use AGA and coders  learned to bang AGA directly that I think it should be AGA compatible.

Best of luck to you, if you're serious you'll have a hard time.

By the way, let me also suggest that you don't give up important stuff in your life to do this, I've done similar things and it's stuuuupiddd......do it in part time just for the pleasure, and we'll talk in ten years... :-D  Unless you can convince Dave Haynie to help you... 8-)

[Wolfe]

1.   Custom, small.  ITX?

2.   AROS.

3.   No.  How about mini PCI?

4.   Yes, but can be done thru USB with an adaptor.

5.   USB (& PS/2?).

6.   Why waste of time & resources for a custom keyboard?  Except for a drop in A1200 mobo.    :-D

7.   If PowerPC is the processor why not choose a graphics chipset that is already compatable?  Or use a processor that is compatible with this chipset.

8.   I would prefer an ITX or an A1200 drop in.

9.   Make it as cheap as possible.  Make it small   :-D

10.  Why use Amiga name?  Those who will buy it will know its an Amiga incantation.  Something cool & unique!

11.  Bad - could get you sued, besides its already been used.

12.  Stick with as much off the shelf stuff as possible for ease of developement, support and cost saving.  Remember, The OS will make or break any hardware you make in regards to that Amiga feel.  

[MaDDuck]

WOW....
Certinly an impressive ammount of replies.



So, here's my 2 cents!


As for the name, Amiga is copyrighted, so call it something original like:

The Miggy 6000?
Or just call it Agnus?

We all know what they mean, and it would be a cool inside joke!





As for Dreamcast compatibility, that would of been cool a few years ago, but aim higher- the Gamecube would be a more realistic goal.  The disks can be read (with a little tweeking) on any DVD ROM drive.....




Best of luck on the new project, I wish you nothing but the best, my friend!

[MagicSN]

Only some questions of myselves:

What is the point of using a PowerVR 1 ? It is oooold. Why not use a current 3D Chip ? Well, anyways, if it would be a recent chip based on the PowerVR that would of course be preferred.

Did you check if Hardware documentation for the PowerVR is available anywhere ? If not I'd go for a different chipset (Radeon comes to my mind, as
to whatever you want to go - OS 4 or MOS - both
are supporting Radeon). At least for 3D new Drivers
would need to be developed... not sure if SNAP supports the later versions of PowerVR (and I think the first one is pointless) or not, did you check this ?
You should better check this before limiting yourselves to a specific 3D Hardware.

I do not think using A4000T Tower-case is a good
idea. There are tower-systems (ATX-based) which
are much more professional (as how easy it is
to exchange hardware). A special-boing-ball-wielding
tower would of course be an idea... but I am sure you could work something out with a tower-case-maker...

BTW: Basically all 3D Chips are "Custom Chips" If you look at how to access them from the "low level" - without standard drivers - there is nothing "standard" in them. Custom Chips means just "Chip produced for a specific purpose", there is absolutely no "Magic" in it.

I think Zorro should be scrapped. Even Dave Haynie
told this some while ago...

Steffen

[sdesros]

1. Stay with a standard size for the motherboard...  Unless, you're thinking of making some sort of drop-in replacements for Amiga cases.  However, this would mean different form factors and cost increases.  It might be best to just stick to standard ATX, or possibly MiniITX.

2. Whatever OS is more complete and stable.  If possible, add compatibility to both.

3.  It would be "neat", but I don't see much use of Zorro slots.  There is not much hardware that aren't available in PCI format.  The Video Toaster requires a video slot and the Amiga custom chipsets, so that's out of the question.  

It might be best to look at a way to implement Zorro slots as a seperate expansion.  (PCI Card?)

4. Would be nice to be able to use my CD32 joysticks...  I'm not sure about Amiga Mice, since I tend to be partial to optical mice now-a-days.

5. I'm using a PC adapter keyboard on my Amiga anyway.  I would state that PS2 might be best.  However if not available, then go with USB.

6. PC keyboard works for me.  Perhaps bundle some stickers to relabel PC keyboards keys to Amiga equivalents.

7. Depends on cost.  Is PowerVR3 that much more powerful?

8. The A4000T is quite big.  I think it would be nice to be able to offer various solutions from full, mid towers down to something like a desktop computer.  The problem with tower-setups is that monitors never seem to be high enough.  With desktop machines with a monitor on top, the  screen is generally a good height.

9. Price?  That's a bit difficult to say.  What is your target audience?  What are the targetted specs?

10.  I don't know about name.  Are you planning on getting licensing for the name?

11.  Iffy.

12.  Dreamcast compatibility would be nice, especially with the homebrew development happening on the Dreamcast.  Yet, I don't know how well that can work if you're going for PowerPC CPU?  Using Dreamcast Joysticks would be neat, but many people complained about the DC JoyPads.  (I tend to like them myself).  I don't know how you can use the Analogue stick though?  Would VMU's do anything?  

[Cymric]

After reading through all the answers given in this thread I have come to the conclusion that the 'NeXT Amiga' AmiDelf is looking for is in fact an AmigaOne or Pegasos with a PowerVR-based graphics card. All given answers are remarkably similar; differences are easily resolved.

Privately, I think that the whole idea was about creating a machine which allowed people to take explicit control of the hardware again. I would consider that experience part of the vaunted 'Amiga feeling' which was supposed to be recreated. The funny thing is that it is still possible: nothing is stopping you from hacking up your own fully customised OS on stock PC hardware, and 'taking over the machine' whenever you feel like doing so. It would mean you learn i386- or PPC-assembly (which in my opinion look quirky compared to m68k-code), but that is a small price to pay. Of course, much of the hardware would be undocumented, but that never stopped demo and game programmers from mucking about with AGA.

[Seehund]

1. ATX, micro/mini/femto/whateverATX. BTX. Whatever standard formfactor(s) you think people want.

2. Whatever the user chooses to install.

3. No. Zorro is a deprecated antique custom interface which costs extra money only for the "benefit" of using deprecated antique custom hardware. If you want Zorro, use an Amiga or build a PCI-to-Zorro adapter instead.

4. No. See 3. Use an Amiga or a Catweasel if you're not happy with PS/2/USB peripherals.

5. Current keyboards use USB and/or PS/2. So, USB and PS/2.

6. Whatever the stores sell and the user chooses.

7. Huh? An AGP and/or PCI-X slot should take care of that. If you must have onboard graphics, pick something mid-range from ATI or nVIDIA.

8. Whatever case the user chooses.

9. If it's much more than $1000 for a complete computer comparable to an up to date PC, then don't bother.

10. Who cares? Blazemonger? Trogdor? If you're gonna call your motherboard/computer/whatever something with "Amiga" in it, you need to own the trademark or get permission (license) from whoever the owners will be in 2104 when the project is finished...

11. Two existing and unrelated trademarks from two different companies? Not the brightest idea.

12. The Amiga is dead. If you're not planning something innovative and brand new (Zorro? Amiga mice?? PowerVR??? Sheesh.) that will offer any advantages to and STAY ahead of the rest of the hardware market, then let nVIDIA, ATI, Apple, Asus, et c. run the hardware race and sit back and enjoy the ride.

If I had a couple of hundred million $ laying around, I'd spend it on vintage cars, a collection of experimental WW2 German armour and airplanes, and a moderately sized island in the Pacific instead.

[AmiDelf]

I thank you all for your contribution to this project. Let the answeres roll inn.

At this time, I am creating a team. If your interested in this project and wants to help out, send me a PM here on www.amiga.org

We need people who/wich knows hardware very well, people with contacts, people who would love to give this project a hand.

And again. Thanks for your contribution. In the end. On Sunday evening, this questions will be taken tougether and reveal what this project is aiming at.

Regards,
Michal, www.amigaworld.org