Amiga One X 1000 and Xena/Xorro

[Megamig]

I'm sick of everyone dissing the X1000 for having it's supposed useless xcore/zena chip... At least Trevor has tried to do something interesting...

I can add glitter to my Amiga if I want to make it interesting. The fact is that every bit of nonsense wastes R&D time that could be better spent in refining other aspects of the X1000 system.

[Megamig]

If don't like it, do something about it.

I would starting by removing all references to the feature until it actually serves a purpose. Don't get me wrong I am sure there are many X1000 users but how many of them are actually using Xena/Xorro?

[Kronos]

Do you people have any better ideas on how next gen Amiga's can be innovative? If you don't like something and where it is going then do something about it. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.

Or in other words:

"Since you can't come up with any good ideas, let us continue with some crap ones"


I see fault in that logik

[spirantho]

@Megamig

I have several ideas myself of what to do with my X1000's Xena.
The only reason I'm not using is because I don't have time - but I still find it interesting.

My ideas are these:
1) A Sinclair Microdrive controller. I know of no hardware Microdrive interfaces apart from those in Spectrums and QLs. Archival and restoration of microdrives could be so much easier with an AmigaOS-based interface. As the microdrive is really just a serially connected stereo tape player, and all the decoding is done in software, the XMOS would be perfect for this sort of thing - the bits coming back off the microdrive could be decoded by the XMOS on the fly, returning the data in a sensible format.
2) A floppy disk controller. The Catweasel has proven that there's a demand for using old floppies on new machines. The I/O ports on the Xorro should easily do for connecting a floppy drive, meaning all new Amiga machines can have floppy drives built-in,  allowing you to install your Classic Amiga software via WHDLoad
3) A SID chip interface. There's nothing quite like the true analogue sound of a SID chip. Emulations are good, but never the same, any more than an MP3 is the same as a good LP. Digital sound will always be an approximation of true analogue sound.

Every now and again I come up with other daft ideas. Of course, many of you will say these are silly ideas, but for ME they'd be fun to implement and would have some kind of use. Could they be done in other ways with other connections? Maybe - but having a fast controller like this does lend itself quite well to things like these.

The only reason I've not done so is simply because I don't have time, but that doesn't stop me appreciating the potential of what's there, and I still intend to play with it more, one day.

[Thorham]

Of course, many of you will say these are silly ideas

Well, the first one is silly, because you could just sample the micro drive tapes (they're tapes, right?), and use some software to convert the samples to binaries.

For the second one, why bother with floppies, if you can just download KG's WHDLoad packs? Then again, floppies are something I personally don't miss (my A1200 doesn't even have a disk drive). Could have nostalgic value (not for me, though, I'm not into Amiga for the nostalgia).

The third one is certainly interesting

[Niding]

I would starting by removing all references to the feature until it actually serves a purpose. Don't get me wrong I am sure there are many X1000 users but how many of them are actually using Xena/Xorro?

Removing all refrences to a feature makes absolutely no sense. If people bitch about Xena/Xorro being undersupported, how would hiding the fact that the hardware "feature" is available? How would that help support for it?

As for the whole discussion about why Trevor and CO designed the X1000 as they did, it really sounds like the discussion Ive read 1000 times on this and other forums. "X1000 is too expensive and horrible perfromance!!" and then the same posters go ahead and discuss Classic hardware without skipping a beat. Investing anything into Classic hardware makes absolutly NO sense from a price vs performance point of view.
Still people do it (including me).
Why? Cause it is fun? Cause someone actually find productivity usage for it WHILE having fun?
I personally just decided to upgrade the A1200 the way I wanted back in the days, but couldnt afford. The c64/a500 generation is pushing 30++ years and generally in a financial position to spend money on "entertainment" without breaking the bank.

The way I see it, Trevor and Co gave anyone intrested another hardware option to invest in. Find it too expensive? There is 440/460. Not into PPC? There is Classic hardware (which Amigakit and Trevor has supported).
I doubt Trevor had any illusions about a massive market that suddenly would spark a flood of drivers. He followed his vision, provided those intrested with ONE MORE hardware option.

But tearing down is easier than building up, so carry on.

[koaftder]

That's interesting that XC hasn't been opened up. Their stated plan was that they were going to open it up soon after they finalized the lang spec and that was right around the corner. That was a few years ago. I think the situation here is that nobody really cares so they haven't put any time into doing that.

I think that trying to kludge together some crap to half-ass get a dev environment for this on OS 4 is a complete waste of time. The audience who would find such a thing interesting is exceedingly small and they'll drop it at the tip of a hat the moment they try the official tool chain and development suite on a real computer. The XMOS tools for working with this family of micro controllers is first class, free and one of the highlights of utilizing these chips. The A1X1K motherboard has an XTAG port, right? If so, why on earth would anyone not use the excellent tools on a PC or Mac?

[Boot_WB]

If so, why on earth would anyone not use the excellent tools on a PC or Mac?

Would the dev environment run under emulation (eg Bochs) on an X1000?

[koaftder]

Would the dev environment run under emulation (eg Bochs) on an X1000?

I don't have any experience with AOS 4. (don't own any of the kit that would run it). I've use the XCore micro controllers in several projects and a few years ago I setup XP in QEMU and had the tool chain running in the VM. Where I worked at we archived projects along with appropriately setup VMs so that if some time down the road something needs to be addressed, we don't have to worry about wasting time rebuilding ancient dev environs. Worked fine, wasn't hard to setup. I never ran any of the debugging tools, i.e. didn't try to use it with an XTAG over USB.

[Megamig]

Removing all refrences to a feature makes absolutely no sense. If people bitch about Xena/Xorro being undersupported, how would hiding the fact that the hardware "feature" is available? How would that help support for it?...

Well I'm confused! Is the CBM marketing department back in business?

Marketing a feature that has no real value on a high end machine (well is that what the X1000 was/is supposed to be) does not make sense. No amount of promotion or rubbishing of the Xena/Xorro interface is going to change the lack of support.

The best Trevor and co can do is to quietly remove the feature from  their advertising and move forward in selling the X1000 on it's strengths not weaknesses.

[Niding]

Well I'm confused! Is the CBM marketing department back in business?

Marketing a feature that has no real value on a high end machine (well is that what the X1000 was/is supposed to be) does not make sense. No amount of promotion or rubbishing of the Xena/Xorro interface is going to change the lack of support.

The best Trevor and co can do is to quietly remove the feature from  their advertising and move forward in selling the X1000 on it's strengths not weaknesses.

I think Lyles post was quite clear; the hardware feature (or whatever YOU want to call it); feel free to use it to whatever you want/can.
Hardly hiding the fact that development for that chip is slow and would greatly benefit from users turning developers.
But reading these posts I do kinda understand why he doesnt bother getting involved much with forums in general.

[Rob]

Well, the first one is silly, because you could just sample the micro drive tapes (they're tapes, right?), and use some software to convert the samples to binaries.

How do you sample the contents of a Microdrive cartridge?

[ElPolloDiabl]

Has anyone suggested that they it might be useful for a business environment?
The classic kiosk system. I assume the Sam Amiga was used as a kiosk system somewhere.

[spirantho]

@Thorham

You've obviously never seen a microdrive cartridge.

@Megamig

To many of us, the Xena IS an attraction, even if it's not been used much yet. But putting it on the board, giving users something new to play with, and then not telling anyone is a bit daft. How will people ever make use of it if the fact that it's there is hidden?

[persia]

Is there a decent touch interface for OS4?

Has anyone suggested that they it might be useful for a business environment?
The classic kiosk system. I assume the Sam Amiga was used as a kiosk system somewhere.

[itix]

Thanks for that AmigaDave.

We have produced Xorro development boards (which are available) and are working on a couple of Xorro specific projects. We are also including an improved Xena/Xorro combination in the AMIGAone X5000, thanks to the specification and hard work of Lyle.

As for complaints, most of the comments appear to come from none AMIGAone X1000 owners?

Of course because 99% of Amiga community members are not X1K owners.

They say Amiga users are very smart.