A new Amiga portable console with new custom chipset.

[persia]

I've just designed a new Amiga:



Can someone send me 20K dollars please.

[amiman99]

There is also the MCC 216. Multi Classic computer. Check out some of the reviews on that.
I'd like one. Perfect if you mostly play games.

I got one and it's not that great, I can't even get WB to run. I would say it runs 50-60% of the games.
If it was an open source box, it could have potential, I mean, the hardware is there, but it just needs better firmware.

Back on topic:
To be honest, It's not going to happen. Is $20000 enough? It's better to invest in portable AROS or MorphOS.

I think most of us would be very happy to upgrade our Amigas to a faster processor. I'm not talking 68030s anymore, I'm talking ColdFire CPUs with a library emulating missing instructions. Most applications would benefit greatly from the upgrade.

My 2c.

[wrath of khan]

I believe the natami board would have been suitable for a handheld in terms of size. Natami is dead but the natami forum members have heavily alluded to the fact that Thomas is still working on a revised natami with a different name. Still I will believe it when I see it. I won't be getting my hopes up this time.

Also marcel verdasdonk is working on a new amiga chipset, progress can be followed at amigacoding.de. At least Marcel seems to be just 'getting the work done'.

Any portable amiga should be a computer too, somewhat like the pandora with its mini keyboard. An amiga console is not enough.
Oh well we can dream.

[persia]

Yeah, I'll probably end up buy one of those LPGA boards when they come out...

[asymetrix]

I know to many this may seem like a far fetched..

Hi

Where is this full description of the requirements for the project ?

I assume this was created when you set up a job proposal to EG Elance.com ?

Which website did you use to post your proposal and what quotes did you get ?

For example an FPGA engineer on Elance.com, how much experience in FPGA design ?

I asked a company once to reverse engineer Amiga chipset but it was a quote of 25,000 USD.

How many developers ? fulltime or part time ?

has the developer seen Minimig core or he will create own ?

I was thinking myself to hire a FPGA developer into creating an Amiga system with limited budget/constraints it would take time.

[asymetrix]

I believe the MCC has an fpga that is smaller than the fpgaArcade. The fpgaArcade fpga is even too small for the Apollo CPU or an FPU with the Amiga chipset. The fpgaArcade should get the 68060 expansion board but I believe this would not permit the original handheld gaming design (if a proper case, LCD screen and controls were ever made). The newest version of the Mist fpga board (Cyclone III with 25k LE) has a larger fpga than the fpgaArcade. It should be large enough for a 68k CPU, FPU and advanced chipset with some cramming but has other limitations. All other retro computing fpga boards I know of are handicapped by too small of fpga including the MiniMig+.

That all may be true, so the MMC is more slim, streamline and efficient - at least it is out the door and making $$, funding MMC II no doubt.

Oh and you can get cheap PPC processors, goto the freescale website to get a few 1 ghz PPC processors for around 30 USD.

[wrath of khan]

Hi

Where is this full description of the requirements for the project ?

I assume this was created when you set up a job proposal to EG Elance.com ?

Which website did you use to post your proposal and what quotes did you get ?

For example an FPGA engineer on Elance.com, how much experience in FPGA design ?

I asked a company once to reverse engineer Amiga chipset but it was a quote of 25,000 USD.

How many developers ? fulltime or part time ?

has the developer seen Minimig core or he will create own ?

I was thinking myself to hire a FPGA developer into creating an Amiga system with limited budget/constraints it would take time.

The handheld system proposed in the indiegogo campaign is just wishful thinking with no actual research done.
Its a beautiful dream but still a dream.

[slaapliedje]

If you had put the boing ball in the middle, I would have signed up!  :laughing:

slaapliedje

[gertsy]

Does it come with a pre-release T-Shirt?

Sorry couldn't resist.

[Paulie85]

The Limebook was a nice idea, but it had one major drawback:
the makers of it stopped making it.

That tends to be a pretty major flaw.

The initial investment required to restart production would have been huge, and the resulting price point too high for its specs.

What is the LimePC Z9 listed on their website -is that similar to it? The site states it has a 800mhz PowerPC MIPS processor, which I find somewhat confusing.

[Duce]

These fly by night, "dreamer projects" are a plague on the Amiga community.
So many people promising the world, and most of them don't have a single clue what it actually involves.

I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been reported on Indiegogo in regards to the Amiga checkmark on the mock up.

I appreciate dreamers as much as the next guy, but these completely unrealistic projects batter the morale of what's left of the community.

For $20k, I'd be surprised if you could even get the casing designed and molded, much less the rest of the project.

[persia]

Why no $50 vouchers?

[agami]

Back before the crash in 2000 my brother and I were talking to a bunch of people in various industries including Fleecy over at Amiga Inc. about a portable Amiga games console, kind of like a SD32. This was just before the GameBoy Advance was released but it was announced and expected soon.

Amiga Inc. were open to it and were very reasonable on the licensing. The highest cost component at the time was the screen as we wanted to be compatible with the existing games library and unlike Nintendo and Sega we could not buy the cheapest screen and tell developers to work with it. Also, Amiga games were not designed to be displayed on a 2 inch screen so we played around with different sizes and 4 inch 4:3 LCD from SHARP was the only screen that fit the bill as there were no lines dropped when displaying the various games resolutions.

The second challenge was the keyboard mapping system. Amiga joysticks had only a single (logical) button. Many games would use other keyboard keys for added functionality, stats, maps, views, etc. and they did not use the same sets of keys. Making the key-mapping function work without needing to modify the original game is what we aimed for as most of the developers were no longer contactable.

The BoXeR style compiling of all the custom chips + 030 into a single low-power ASIC was the third challenge. The low-power was more of a challenge than the single-IC part.

Today I'd imagine most of the tech has come down in price and emulation has improved drastically so $20k could fund the prototype. Though if a single developer worked on the software bits full time it would take 12 months to get all those things done and what's left over from the $20k isn't going to be enough.

Its a nice dream and more than that it is a product that would sell if it could be developed (read: funded). It would require more like $250k to get it to production. The unit price should not be more than $299 and you'd start making a profit after selling 2,500 units.

[Bif]

For a laugh I occasionally check how close this project is to reaching its funding goal. Expecting to see $0 raised as usual, I was shocked to see it has now raised $20. I expect it might be from the project promoter, but if it is somebody else, I sure feel sorry for them. The project is set up such that it will receive all funds, even if the goal is not reached. Really that's pretty much criminal, because there is no way in hell this project can be completed.

[hishamk]

Its a nice dream and more than that it is a product that would sell if it could be developed (read: funded). It would require more like $250k to get it to production. The unit price should not be more than $299 and you'd start making a profit after selling 2,500 units.

$250k is seriously not a lot of money - especially if it's coming from and driven by someone that's enthusiastic and believes in the potential of the Amiga platform as a viable niche contender to mainstream OSs.

I guess to some extent Trevor Dickinson fits that bill- I'm sure he took on some financial risk setting up A-Eon and commissioning production of the X1000.

[ElPolloDiabl]

No Amiga effort would make a lot of money. AROS is the best effort because you will get a lot more people.