To high of prices on new boards

[smerf]

Hi,

Just went browsing through the Amiga Stores looking for a new modern board to buy, I think the Amiga stores are charging to high of prices for what you are getting. For $900 some dollars I can buy a whole PC computer today that would outshine anything that they have up for sale, and I am talking about a whole computer, not just a motherboard. I was just wondering how many Amiga people out there didn't buy because they looked at the price and said "I can't afford that", and then after that giving up hope on getting a new modern day computer just gave up and went away, after all we all can't afford that much money just for a motherboard, it is just plain insane. Going to look at a raspberry pi, or a new nuc board, at least there price is reasonable and maybe I can do something with it, plus they are faster then anything the Amiga dealers are offering out there for a 3 times  or more lower price.

Now I know some one is going to say "But the Amiga is a specialty computer, and there are so little of us that is why the price is so high".

Well all I have to say is "If the price was lower, like $900 some dollars, for a whole computer they just might have more buyers, and more people back in the new Amiga game".

What do you all think?

Let the flame wars begin.

smerf

[gaula92]

Take the FPGA route for classic Amiga software (A1000 to A4000 software in an FPGA ARCADE board, new and robust Amiga hardware) and never look back.

Screw these thieves that sell overpriced and underpowered hardware, wich has to emulate the chipset to run classic apps & games.

Go FPGA! You won't repent

[TCMSLP]

Sure, lower prices would attract people back to the platform.

However, these items are made in small quantities with massive development costs.   If the companies didn't at least make their investment costs back (and pay some sort of salary to employees) then we'd not have any companies at all.

The netbook excited a lot of people as it offered a low cost introduction to OS4.x.  I hope there's some way of using this obvious interest and demand to bring an affordable product to market.

If people want an amiga-like experience on commodity hardware then we have AROS (see http://www.ares-shop.de/ for a complete solution) and MorphOS (from http://www.morphos.de/ and requiring an old Mac or other PPC hardware).

Steve

[TCMSLP]

Gaula92: I love the look of the FPGA solutions, however you're ultimately limited in terms of performance plus architecture (it won't run OS4.x).   Sure, this is a matter of personal preference and religion (regarding 'what is Amiga') but an FPGA only covers one segment of the market.   Also, calling those catering to other parts of the market 'thieves' for attempting to recover development/production costs is a little ... odd.

[yssing]

Why did the prices come as a surprise?
They have been high since the first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm).

Trolling maybe?

[smerf]

Why did the prices come as a surprise?
They have been high since the first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm).

Trolling maybe?

No, I am not trolling, look at Amiga.org, doesn't it seem to be getting smaller, I mean less people, more people are giving up and going away. Now I love my hobby of the Amiga computer, and I would love to see more development not only for the classic Amiga's but for a newer faster version, with better graphics and sound. To me even today, I enjoy using the Amiga more than I ever enjoyed a PC, when you really look at it, some of the programming programs for a PC cost as much as a new minimig, that is why I don't program on a PC, therefore the PC is just a browse the internet, play the newer games, complete entertainment system for me. In other words it has replaced my stereo, my TV, my gaming consoles, and my calculators.

The Amiga could have improved and done all this 20 years ago, if someone really took initiative to get her done, but most companies just took her to the bank and made tons of money off the Amiga, then left her to die. Even today I just see more companies trying to make a fast buck off the Amiga and we take the bait and buy there under engineered processes for a high price.

The only way we are going to get anywhere is quit praising under engineered efforts, and ask where is this going and how is it going to help the Amiga community get back into the main stream of computers. So far the only real true efforts I see is AROS and (ok I am biting my tongue real hard on this one, ouch this hurts) MorphOS. Why do I say this, because for the price they are asking and the effort that they have put forth is truly worth it, and I am planning to invest in both of them in the future. (why a apple product, please look at IBM's new ppc computers, I think they are still with them). but even though I rant and rave about apple, the mini mac is an apple and it works.

So no, I am not trolling, I am just stating facts. Going to also look strongly at the fpga replay board, trying to find a price on it today, to see if it is just another under engineered product for a high price, if it is less then $200, I might consider it.

[ElPolloDiabl]

The lack of modern software means that most people would only use it as a hobby or casual computer.
Lowering the price might cause the current hardware makers to lose interest and then we would have nothing instead of more.

I suppose with the small amount of users there is also no 2nd hand market for people buy an Amiga without spending a lot of money. Perhaps some more Amiga clubs where people can try Amiga might be good.

[SACC-guy]

No, I am not trolling, look at Amiga.org, doesn't it seem to be getting smaller, I mean less people, more people are giving up and going away. Now I love my hobby of the Amiga computer, and I would love to see more development not only for the classic Amiga's but for a newer faster version, with better graphics and sound. To me even today, I enjoy using the Amiga more than I ever enjoyed a PC, when you really look at it, some of the programming programs for a PC cost as much as a new minimig, that is why I don't program on a PC, therefore the PC is just a browse the internet, play the newer games, complete entertainment system for me. In other words it has replaced my stereo, my TV, my gaming consoles, and my calculators.

The Amiga could have improved and done all this 20 years ago, if someone really took initiative to get her done, but most companies just took her to the bank and made tons of money off the Amiga, then left her to die. Even today I just see more companies trying to make a fast buck off the Amiga and we take the bait and buy there under engineered processes for a high price.

The only way we are going to get anywhere is quit praising under engineered efforts, and ask where is this going and how is it going to help the Amiga community get back into the main stream of computers. So far the only real true efforts I see is AROS and (ok I am biting my tongue real hard on this one, ouch this hurts) MorphOS. Why do I say this, because for the price they are asking and the effort that they have put forth is truly worth it, and I am planning to invest in both of them in the future. (why a apple product, please look at IBM's new ppc computers, I think they are still with them). but even though I rant and rave about apple, the mini mac is an apple and it works.

So no, I am not trolling, I am just stating facts. Going to also look strongly at the fpga replay board, trying to find a price on it today, to see if it is just another under engineered product for a high price, if it is less then $200, I might consider it.

@smerf
You do understand that morph users has the same problem as classic users...
the hardware is old and while lower in cost to buy used, the repairs or replacement costs starts adding up. In my case I had to replace a power supply and graphics card on a used mac for morph.

The only NEW hardware is Acube's SAM and AEon X1000 even if the price offends.

M

[billt]

Hi,

Just went browsing through the Amiga Stores looking for a new modern board to buy, I think the Amiga stores are charging to high of prices for what you are getting. For $900 some dollars I can buy a whole PC computer today that would outshine anything that they have up for sale, and I am talking about a whole computer, not just a motherboard. I was just wondering how many Amiga people out there didn't buy because they looked at the price and said "I can't afford that", and then after that giving up hope on getting a new modern day computer just gave up and went away, after all we all can't afford that much money just for a motherboard, it is just plain insane. Going to look at a raspberry pi, or a new nuc board, at least there price is reasonable and maybe I can do something with it, plus they are faster then anything the Amiga dealers are offering out there for a 3 times  or more lower price.

Now I know some one is going to say "But the Amiga is a specialty computer, and there are so little of us that is why the price is so high".

Well all I have to say is "If the price was lower, like $900 some dollars, for a whole computer they just might have more buyers, and more people back in the new Amiga game".

What do you all think?

Welcome to a market of very very small quantities.

The hardware design I am dreamin gof currently has a US$900 CPU chip. (No, not what A_Eon said about PA Semi a while back, something else) If I would finish this idea into a product, it's simply not possible to sell it for $100 to end users. Raspberry Pi is not a good comparison, as it is not meant as a desktop computer with expansion slots etc. it's basically a $5 or $10 CPU chip, a PCB, and some connectors selling in much hither quantities. You're comparing Apples to tractors here. Not the same thing.

[guest3110]

:biglaugh: See? It's the same problem that has existed for a long time in the Amiga community.

Look at this example:

MSI NVIDIA GeForce GT 640, 4GB 128-Bit DDR3, HDMI, DL-DVI-D, VGA, PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card  N640-4GD3
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GeForce-DL-DVI-D-Graphics-N640-4GD3/dp/B00BGUEWKC/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377013866&sr=1-1&keywords=MSI+4GB+video+card

That is the kind of card someone with "Amiga OS" should be buying these days. The focus: on Amiga OS being able to use such. (read: plentiful, accessible, inexpensive hardware).

Custom = expensive.
Commodity hardware doesn't equal (!=) bad, necessarily.


The PC world--whether deliberate or not; whether stumbling upon the idea 'accidentally' or not--basically saw video graphics cards become like the AGNUS or FAT AGNUS chip. That's how a modern Amiga OS should handle modern video graphics cards, at any rate.

And beyond the one linked above, which has 4 Gigabytes of video RAM (compare that to the idea of the agnus chip, okay?), there are cards with greater RAM. 8GB, 16GB, etc. It never ends; new products continually arrive, with better features. Faster, greater capacity, and so on.


I always find it funny when today's developers of the Amiga 'market' (if one can call its paltry size a market) haven't evolved or changed. Of course, part of the fault and blame and problem has been those developing the Amiga OS itself, or handling that, to move the OS into the future. Why do I find it funny? Because PAST luminaries of the Amiga have agreed with my viewpoint. Carl Sassenrath agreed on the remarkable and interesting notion of the Amiga OS on an exokernel (and there have been discussions that Exec was closer to an exokernel rather than microkernel). Dave Haynie has commented before about using modern hardware. It just makes no sense not to.

Most of the moves by those at the controls of Amiga OS or its hardware have equated to: "Let's keep this a NICHE platform. Our own little hobby. Anyone who wants to pay, will greatly pay." Or some similar attitude. The behavior and reality proves this. And Gateway's 'We didn't buy Amiga to make it smaller'...? :lol:

Now it's gone full circle. From the SPLIT between Amiga and Commodore, with ESCOM selling both to different parties... to Commodore now owning Amiga again. I think that's one whole chapter that is over now. So many changes of hands, and what...really...has advanced?

And, just for the record, I never did buy the idea that a new computer or OS couldn't come along to challenge what is currently out there "because what is currently out there is so massive and ubiquitous", etc. At ANY time, a real rebel may come along and challenge the status quo. That's how we all advance. All it takes is willpower to do it--and the money follows the willpower, if you've got a good enough idea.

Approached differently, an Amiga OS being able to run boards like the one I linked above... could create the scenario where these developers of the currently overpriced hardware (or: hardware priced high to recoup because of low production numbers, to be fair) focus their attention on creating boards that compete. Unless some developers are just lazy and old and don't want to push themselves to be Amiga-like.  Nothing stops them from using off-the-shelf parts, just like the modern board makers do. I mean, they do that, anyway. In the end, a capacitor is just a capacitor, a resistor a resistor, and silicon, and so on.

Amiga, to be anything more than an extremely niche hobby OS, is going to require a sea change of thinking. It's going to require some DARING. One good thing: nobody would EVERY expect anything from it; so it has the advantage of rivals underestimating it--even to the point of ridicule and naysaying. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"--Ghandi. The element of surprise, like the old Hi-Toro joystick-maker front idea.

But this is just talk, I guess. Nothing will probably change. People don't like change. People are scared of change. It's as uncomfortable as the truth, which is ironically eternal.
:hat:

[koaftder]

Take the FPGA route for classic Amiga software (A1000 to A4000 software in an FPGA ARCADE board, new and robust Amiga hardware) and never look back.

Screw these thieves that sell overpriced and underpowered hardware, wich has to emulate the chipset to run classic apps & games.

Go FPGA! You won't repent

They're not thieves, they just can leverage economies of scale. OS 4 setups are suboptimal anyway for the enthusiast who only cares about classic stuff.

The FPGA stuff though is a dream come true.

[Gulliver]

Why did the prices come as a surprise?
They have been high since the first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm).

Trolling maybe?

That comparison is not accurate:
The first PPC boards (blizzard/cyberstorm) were cutting edge PPC stuff back then. No one would dare say that current AmigaOne offerings are cutting edge. So in the end price is a showstopper: you now pay more for less.

[Gulliver]

@smerf
You do understand that morph users has the same problem as classic users...
the hardware is old and while lower in cost to buy used, the repairs or replacement costs starts adding up. In my case I had to replace a power supply and graphics card on a used mac for morph.

The only NEW hardware is Acube's SAM and AEon X1000 even if the price offends.

M

You are wrong, Morphos users are in the best of situations: hardware is abundant, it is reasonably inexpensive, and there are more skilled repair shops for them than several times what the 68k and AmigaOne users have together.

[ElPolloDiabl]

All you need is someone working full-time writing drivers for all the new cards that come out.
When you compare PC prices you might also be comparing to discounted prices.

The SAM price is okay... if the CPU speed was double what you get. 1066mhz instead of 533mhz for the entry model.

It is seriously time to go ARM for a long term upgrade path. That might also avoid having a lot of the x86 expansion kludge that you have put up with.

[wawrzon]

You are wrong, Morphos users are in the best of situations: hardware is abundant, it is reasonably inexpensive, and there are more skilled repair shops for them than several times what the 68k and AmigaOne users have together.

in fact i know few addresses where you can dependably send in and repair your genuine amiga hardware. besides i dont see the general shortage of it, you will actually always be able to find whatever you need for close to reasonable prices. and please dont tell me now about the ppc accels, who needs them? on the contrary i have seen a number of people walking away because they couldnt get their os4 hardware repaired and they couldnt afford or justify a replacement. and i dont talk about those leaving silently through the back door.