Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson

[Blizz1220]

Consider the highlight.
I was talking to Paul Gentle at about the same time Trevor (unknown to me) initially was (in my case about MPC8641/8640 SoCs, which Paul also had experience with).
And no, it wasn't Trevor's idea, it was McBill's and Ack Systems (they set the spec that the Nemo meets).
Paul, on the other hand, wanted to use Qorlq processors (and that is what the X2000 will be based on).
Don't assume you know what your talking about.
Our design was about 75% done (and oddly enough without knowing it used the same Southbridge as the X1000).
At the same time Bill Buck and at least two other parties were considering MPC8610 based boards .

What I respect is Trevor went to the right company, threw his own money in, and got it done.
And I'm really impressed with Paul Gentle.
I backed out when the estimated costs would have meant a second mortgage on my home.

And I don't care what you do or do not 'hate'.
Actions speak louder than words.

Don't want to join us?
You are free to use AROS.

PPCs have more than enough power for our demands and there is always ARM if the need to migrate occurs.

Well I'm speechless ...
Old Macs are good enough for me , Morphos is fast enough OS on G4 ...
And you're right , you clearly have much better idea about this than
me ... You will probably get less users than Trevor though , he has the
advantage of am Amiga name ... I'm really done now ...

[Iggy]

Some people seem to have selective memory. Don't find the reference anymore but Buck hasn't all MorphOS developers, one of them even released Ambient under GPL as reaction.

Buck still has Andre Siegel.

[nicholas]

Well I'm speechless ...
Old Macs are good enough for me , Morphos is fast enough OS on G4 ...
And you're right , you clearly have much better idea about this than
me ... You will probably get less users than Trevor though , he has the
advantage of am Amiga name ... I'm really done now ...

Nope it has the name 'AmigaOS'. They have no right to use the name 'Amiga'. Not even 'Amiga OS'.

[wawrzon]

And no, it wasn't Trevor's idea, it was McBill's and Ack Systems (they set the spec that the Nemo meets).

yes, i remember to be astonished to read the specs ains and ack anounced for their machine and then see the same on x1k..

[Iggy]

Well I'm speechless ...
Old Macs are good enough for me , Morphos is fast enough OS on G4 ...
And you're right , you clearly have much better idea about this than
me ... You will probably get less users than Trevor though , he has the
advantage of am Amiga name ... I'm really done now ...

Old Macs?
I've got four G4 PowerMacs (I promied to give two of them away), three partially disassembled Powerbooks, and an iBook.
You're damned right they are adequate.

And no, you're not done, we didn't talk about any of the projects on this site much.
Piru probably knew.
Andre Siegel now about my interest becuase we just exchanged messages.

And the design tasks for a project like this are horrifying.
I used to work for a company that designed its own 68K systems.
Easy stuff in comparison.
2 or 4 layer boards vs as many as 12.
Very careful calculation for lead length and tough considerations involving routing.
In substituting an ATI SB600 for the ULi Southbridge I basically had to consider every connection (ATI multiplexs several pins reducing pin count).

Then there's glue logic. No more simple dip devices, no you need an fpga.

And lots of the components are surface mounted (including the CPU).

So after its designed, it needs to be farmed out to a firm that can handle fabbing it.

A lot of people are using Chinese sources for this (even on small runs).

That, and the overprice processors makes it more expensive.

Anyway, the more I go back over this, the more I realize why I dropped it.
It is an over-priced option.

Anymore consideration, and I would be talking to Staf about an AROS bounty project.

[Jose]

The only thing I don't like is the probable lack of AltiVec. Otherwise great news, even if the price is not what we wanted.

[Duce]

Enjoyed the read, thanks for sharing it.

[VingtTrois]

Thanks Daff!

[OlafS3]

Consider the highlight.
I was talking to Paul Gentle at about the same time Trevor (unknown to me) initially was (in my case about MPC8641/8640 SoCs, which Paul also had experience with).
And no, it wasn't Trevor's idea, it was McBill's and Ack Systems (they set the spec that the Nemo meets).
Paul, on the other hand, wanted to use Qorlq processors (and that is what the X2000 will be based on).
Don't assume you know what your talking about.
Our design was about 75% done (and oddly enough without knowing it used the same Southbridge as the X1000).
At the same time Bill Buck and at least two other parties were considering MPC8610 based boards .

What I respect is Trevor went to the right company, threw his own money in, and got it done.
And I'm really impressed with Paul Gentle.
I backed out when the estimated costs would have meant a second mortgage on my home.

And I don't care what you do or do not 'hate'.
Actions speak louder than words.

Don't want to join us?
You are free to use AROS.

PPCs have more than enough power for our demands and there is always ARM if the need to migrate occurs.

What PPC have enough power? The used Macs are not getting faster over time I assume and the new "Super-Amigas" also have "Super-Prices" and are much more expensive at the time. And then try to sell these systems to users outside the community. Propably there are reasons why MorphOS is hardly selling licenses with only few new users. It has reached the end of line. The same is for AmigaOS. They are exploiting the existing market to the limit but they will win no new users. Further stagnation and a slow decline. That is at least not my ideal and vision of the future but others seem to be accepted that, me not.

I think PPC is dead end and stays dead end. There will be no growth with PPC, no new users and no future.

[nicholas]

What PPC have enough power? The used Macs are not getting faster over time I assume and the new "Super-Amigas" also have "Super-Prices" and are much more expensive at the time. And then try to sell these systems to users outside the community. Propably there are reasons why MorphOS is hardly selling licenses with only few new users. It has reached the end of line. The same is for AmigaOS. They are exploiting the existing market to the limit but they will win no new users. Further stagnation and a slow decline. That is at least not my ideal and vision of the future but others seem to be accepted that, me not.

The blame for that lies squarely at the feet of Bill McEwen and Ben Hermans.

MorphOS could have been Amiga OS4 back in 2000 and there would have been no split, the Q/Box would probably have been a fully functioning OS by now and a transition to commodity x86 hardware may have come about.

We will never know now due to the greed and incompetence of those two men.

All in my not so humble opinion of course.

[OlafS3]

We not know what would have happened then, or when both commercial OSs would have died and all would have concentrated on one system (AROS). And it makes no sense to speculate about it. At the moment all three are more or less "undead" and should do what we can to improve the situation.

[Fats]

The blame for that lies squarely at the feet of Bill McEwen and Ben Hermans.

... and BBRV

[nicholas]

... and BBRV

How so?

BBRV had nothing to do with MOS until after Bill McEwen decided not to use it as OS4 on the advice of the proven liar Ben Hermans.

[yssing]

Thanks for the interview, it was a great read.

@thread, do keep up the nagging, it's fun to read :-)

[vox]

The blame for that lies squarely at the feet of Bill McEwen and Ben Hermans.

MorphOS could have been Amiga OS4 back in 2000 and there would have been no split, the Q/Box would probably have been a fully functioning OS by now and a transition to commodity x86 hardware may have come about.

We will never know now due to the greed and incompetence of those two men.

All in my not so humble opinion of course.

MorphOS has not been the chosen one, which could skip a lot of good work (like AOS4 is not yet MUI4 ... just as an example. As well as I do like reggae as sound interfrace and those butterflies). It has its shots, software depot, discussion zone, free to try version (great one!, once again consider SAMs and X1000 before going to x86) ... PPC apps since
2000 http://mos.aminet.net/search?arch[]=ppc-morphos&sort=date

... but there is no crying over What IF

I am looking forward to see next MorphOS, it would be great if I could run it

[vox]

What PPC have enough power?

I think PPC is dead end and stays dead end. There will be no growth with PPC, no new users and no future.

Somehow they keep diging CPUs. And they are not bad at all, take away consideration that you probably have stronger x86 already, or if you need one, you can go to the local store.