ADOOM on A600 running 22-35 FPS

[Niding]

Thanks
 


What would be the pricepoint in your opinion for the FPGA/ASIC?

Lets say we wanted to build a new retro AMIGA with 600 MHz 68020 performance, fast FPU
256 MB fast memory, SAGA (truecolor) chipset ...
What in your opinion is the price break for the FPGA of such a system?
At which price you would say the FPGA is ideal for this?

I will just chip in, with my coder iliterate opinion;

If you broke down your expenses and told the community that to even break even on the components the price is; xxx dollars/euros.
Ontop of that we have spent x 100's or 1000's of hours actually making that, so we would like to see some return for our efforts and future development.
Putting a 10, 20, 30, 40% etc profit margin ontop of bare cost is something the MAJORITY of people will understand, cause its hard to quantify the hours spent, espesically on hobby projects that spans over years. There will always be people that want stuff for component break even pricepoint, but those can just be ignored

[matthey]

What would be the pricepoint in your opinion for the FPGA/ASIC?

Lets say we wanted to build a new retro AMIGA with 600 MHz 68020 performance, fast FPU
256 MB fast memory, SAGA (truecolor) chipset ...
What in your opinion is the price break for the FPGA of such a system?
At which price you would say the FPGA is ideal for this?

I think I know where you are going. From a business standpoint, it would be much less risky to make a limited supply of FPGA boards (and accelerators) for as cheap as is reasonable and sell for as much as possible. Looking at current FPGA stand alone boards, we see a price of $200-$300 U.S. for good quality boards with low to mid range Amiga specs. That is in competition with a $35 U.S base price for the Rasberry Pi using emulation. With 1% of the Pi sales, the FPGA boards would have sold 50,000 units. Unfortunatly, the current FPGA board prices are a little high, the CPU performance is weak, the FPGA sizes could be larger, memory sizes are inadequate for general computing and there is little in the way of a standard platform. Some retro gamers would appreciate the more accurate FPGA emulation and pay up but most are choosing the Pi. It would be difficult to make a competive FPGA board with higher specs but substantially cheaper than current FPGA boards. An ASIC could make it possible to reach the $100-$150 range with competive specs to the Pi but with a little more expansion and a few more niceties to try to grab a few percentage of the Pi market (maybe a case would allow to sell in stores too). I bet at least 10% of Pi sales have gone to people that would prefer to have an Amiga computer or 68k CPU but only Raspberry Pi was offered instead of Cherry Pi. Let's say only 3% would have payed up for the Amiga or 68k which would be 150,000 potential Amiga users. That is easily enough to make an ASIC worthwhile. The risk is higher but if the goal is to increase the Amiga user base instead of making the most short term profits, there is potential. Investing in such a plan may be more appealing to those who are already invested in the Amiga or it could be throughing good money after bad. Some of the risk could also be reduced by finding good partners to help lower costs. I was looking at embedded where the fastest 68k and ColdFire CPU on the market could sell on it's own if it was compatible enough. I believe the Pi received very good pricing and arrangments from supplies as well. The Raspberry Pi Foundation promotes computer learning and CISC Pi is very different from RISC Pi so maybe they could be approached to gain some of the same resources and support (David Braben of Elite fame is one of the founders). There is a lot more outside of the Amiga niche that could be explored if we were organized and cooperating.

Edit: There have been more than 5 million Pi sales now so I updated some numbers.

[NovaCoder]

Thanks
 


What would be the pricepoint in your opinion for the FPGA/ASIC?

Lets say we wanted to build a new retro AMIGA with 600 MHz 68020 performance, fast FPU
256 MB fast memory, SAGA (truecolor) chipset ...
What in your opinion is the price break for the FPGA of such a system?
At which price you would say the FPGA is ideal for this?

I hate to say it but it would have to be around $200 to sell big (relatively speaking).    You can already buy an awesome retro computer for $50.

You'd still sell some at $500 but not that many I think

[biggun]

Looking at current FPGA stand alone boards, we see a price of $200-$300 U.S. for good quality boards with low to mid range Amiga specs. .

you compare apples and oranges.
The current FPGA boards for AMIGA have quite  high prices for what they offer.
That these board have so high prices DOES NOT mean that an FPGA is more expensive than an ASIC.

An FPGA board with 256 MB fastmem, and 68020 CPU with 600 Mhz performance and SAGA could today be sold for less than $100. If a few thousand would be produced.

[biggun]

I hate to say it but it would have to be around $200 to sell big (relatively speaking).    You can already buy an awesome retro computer for $50.

You'd still sell some at $500 but not that many I think

I could give you this for $200 today easily.

[IanP]

Looking at the prices for second hand Amigas there must be a market for new machines at $200-300. You are never going to compete with the raspberry pi or the dozens of other arm single board computers on cost. What you could do is try and cut a deal to licence the Amiga name. A small desktop system baring the official Amiga brand with a real amiga 68K operating system and chipset but much more powerful than any previous 68k Amiga would be a winning combination in my opinion.

[Jose]

@biggun

There is clearly a market for both higher cost and lower cost. I'd say there is even market for super high end. Heck look at the second hand market, whenever a Blizzard 1260 comes up it sells very quickly and those go for 500€ or more.

[trekiej]

Right now any performance improvement is welcome to me.
Good work to all that are working on this project.
I encourage you to continue to work on it.

[NorthWay]

I'd guess that there is a "high-end" market for something like a 1-2G ram machine with 32bit 1920x1200 (or higher) for approx 1000 $/EUR/UKP. Doesn't have to include cabinet/ps.

If you want to add a little extra value / up the price, then I would love to have it delivered in an A1000 cabinet. (I am seriously beginning to think about getting an A1000 purely for aesthetic reasons - not to use it.)

[Niding]

Well, high end production entails alot of financial risk for the producers.

Which Id say NovaCoders 200 dollar quote seems more sensible... or?

The original quote about 64 megs memory was cause they wanted to keep it simple(ish) and cheap with existing hardware.

[Fransexy_]

An FPGA board with 256 MB fastmem, and 68020 CPU with 600 Mhz performance and SAGA could today be sold for less than $100. If a few thousand would be produced.

[Fransexy_]

Well, high end production entails alot of financial risk for the producers.

why not make a crowfunding campaign in kickstarter?

[Niding]

why not make a crowfunding campaign in kickstarter?

I was thinking the same, but that moves the project from "hobby" project they do at their own time, to "serious bissniss" where you have "customers" that will demand this/that and when nonstop

But Ill let biggun comment.

[wawrzon]

i trust gunnar and the project members will consider options in due time. so far i very much agree with the roadmap. its too early to speak of asic. the project must gain some testing, popularity and must progress further. then it may become computable what audience it may achieve and what it may offer and then a campaign would make sense. i admire the realism not to do it now.

[Hattig]

Do we really need an ASIC?

Of course not, ASICs, even on an older process (90/65nm) are horrendously expensive for the potential market.

FPGAs are more than enough - a ~600Mhz 68020 equivalent is more than enough for any 68k Amiga software that's ever been written.

PowerPC? Well, some FPGAs include PowerPC cores that could potentially be wired in.

[kolla]

I bet at least 10% of Pi sales have gone to people that would prefer to have an Amiga computer or 68k CPU but only Raspberry Pi was offered instead of Cherry Pi. Let's say only 3% would have payed up for the Amiga or 68k which would be 150,000 potential Amiga users.

I would say this is a huge over estimate, huge huge HUGE over estimate!!!

It would surprise me a lot if a 68k Cherry pi would sell much at all, probably less than 5000. At least without a full fledge capable CPU with MMU, so that it easily can boot a relevant operating system.

I think you have misunderstood why people buy the raspberry pi, it's not just because it is cheap, it is because it is cheap and fully supported bu Linux. Extremely few are interested in a lamed down EC 68k that only can run AmigaOS and maybe uCLinux if you are lucky.