More info on 'Amiga Reloaded'

[paul1981]

Lol, USB and RJ45 (Ethernet) ports aren't going anywhere or changing to the point where they won't be backwards compatible.

Both should have been included on this board, and had they been, I probably would have ended up buying one.

Glad I made someone smile today

I hope you're right. Still, it leaves options open for different interfaces or upgrades as an alternative.

[paul1981]

You know if they had been, somebody would complain about "why do I have to pay extra for something I'm not going to use", blah blah yadda yadda.

You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can't please all the people all the time!  

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

[ddniUK]

Asking if the glass is half empty or half full is the wrong question. Always ask what is in the glass!

[Iggy]

As Amiga's go, this glass is pretty damned full.
I thought was done buying legacy hardware but this might just have changed my mind.

[Wolfe]

I prefer the modular approach. USB is an old technology which could go out of favour in the future, or drastically change. Same with onboard NIC's. To future proof the machine, I really do believe that the modular approach is the right one. I understand your point of view though.

USB:
Well, I don't see USB going anywhere soon, and given the scope of the machine being classic in nature and its slow bus speeds (talking about all future bus speeds in comparison to modern tech.), having the ability to plug in a DVD/CD drive is an important basic feature, much like having a floppy drive capability for those who need/want to continue using them.  Parallel and Serial ports of old can be utilized through USB (with drivers) at a far cheaper cost (an adapter) than buying a module for USB.  Just look at the current cost of existing module.

NIC:
The easiest way to update the computer would be to have access to a network/internet in a cost effective manner.  

I understand your point, but by that way of thinking, to keep the computer at pace with the world, all devices on board should be modules.  Thus the form factor should be like a larger, more modern modular system.  (Big RPi or A4K replacement)  But the form factor has been chosen by the developer to be for the A500 & A1200 without having to cut or modify the case  so where do all these add on cards going to go/come out of the system?  The number of outlets for expandability are limited by each case in question.

Price will determine the success.

And yes, I am smiling . . . :lol:

[NovaCoder]

Yep I agree.

At a minimum I'd like it to include:

Indy Mrk2
LAN
USB

[mingle]

Yep I agree.

At a minimum I'd like it to include:

Indy Mrk2
LAN
USB

I heartedly agree. This would've been a great opportunity to create a 'baseline' system (USB, NIC, 'VGA' output) that would act as nice target platform for 68k developers.

Making it so modular, while a good money-spinner for the retailers, will tend to 'fragment' the user-base... I guess I'm thinking a bit ahead of myself...

Just my opinion though...

Mike.

[skolman]

+ SATA
+ audio codec / dsp

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/design/embedded-systems/xmos-shows-3-quad-core-microcontroller-2013-02/

[ddniUK]

I tend to agree that a new baseline board with the essentials included would be preferable. The USB/VGA/NIC/CPU kludges we have now are driven by necessity to work with the classic motherboards.
Building these kludges into a new motherboard seems odd.

Who knows why this approach has been taken, it may be driven by I/O limitations of the AGA chips, build costs or a desire to shift a large stock of individual computers add on cards.

Whatever the reason, having new dedicated classic motherboards is a great thing, so hats off to Jens for sticking with it.

[Rob]

Yep I agree.

At a minimum I'd like it to include:

Indy Mrk2
LAN
USB

Buy those modules with the board then.  Simple.

[psxphill]

I understand your point, but by that way of thinking, to keep the computer at pace with the world, all devices on board should be modules. Thus the form factor should be like a larger, more modern modular system.

It would surely be nice if there was a usb3/pcie3/zorro capable motherboard, with bonus points for built in gigabit and sata. However you'd probably be better off making a minimig pcie3 bridgeboard, with the amiga audio and video streamed across the pcie3 bus but allow full control of all the new hardware from 68k as well.
 
 Ultimately you end up deciding that amithlon is probably the cheapest option.

[AJCopland]

Asking if the glass is half empty or half full is the wrong question. Always ask what is in the glass!

No, always ask: "Hey! Who the hell drank half my beer?!?"

From Jens perspective it makes perfect sense to have no CPU, its a new board, that sells more of his boards and it *might* work with older accelerators too. Likewise with the USB etc.

Really he's not going to be able to please everyone and this "buy what you want" approach makes sense.

I'm certainly curious about it anyway.

[Rob]

I tend to agree that a new baseline board with the essentials included would be preferable. The USB/VGA/NIC/CPU kludges we have now are driven by necessity to work with the classic motherboards.
Building these kludges into a new motherboard seems odd.

It won't be kludges though since the module will have a dedicated connections on the motherboard rather than clipping over a chip or hanging off some port that was never designed for the purpose.

Who knows why this approach has been taken, it may be driven by I/O limitations of the AGA chips, build costs or a desire to shift a large stock of individual computers add on cards.

It's mainly because different people have different needs.  If you're building a WHDload games machine your less likely to want USB and a NIC, while other users may view those items as essential.

[blanning]

From Jens perspective it makes perfect sense to have no CPU, its a new board, that sells more of his boards and it *might* work with older accelerators too. Likewise with the USB etc.

Really he's not going to be able to please everyone and this "buy what you want" approach makes sense.

I agree.  The amiga community is, well, a little nutty.  And as someone else mentioned, it would be impossible to please all the people all the time.  This seems like the best compromise.

I seem to remember some people complaining about the addition of the 68020 to the aca500.  I also remember a lot of people complaining that the aca500 was external.  This seems like a reaction to both those complaints.  This allows people to do whatever they want.

So maybe this approach will offend the fewest people while providing a reasonable solution to those who are offended?  It's a lot easier to add missing features than to remove (and refund) unneeded features.

[A6000]

If he had called it "acutiator" everyone would be ecstatic about the new system.

[Lurch]

The limitation is in Alice. It might just be lack of support in the chip, but I've never bothered to look whether the pin out would support >2mb. It's a dram interface so row and column addresses are multiplexed, it's not as simple as counting address bits. Bearing in mind the a4000 2mb/8mb chip jumper, it's possible that if you could obtain an Alice that supported 8mb it would drop in to the design. It might need different ram though.
 
 It's possible but unlikely that Alice would support 8mb but the motherboard and ram that commodore supplied was unsuitable. I'm not holding out any hope that anyone would find out how to make that work, even if it did exist.
 
 The only way to fix it would be with an FPGA and then you might as well buy a mist or arcadefpga.

Just need to look at how DraCo did it :-)