[UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.

[nicholas]

Depends what that extra expense entails.

170-180 for 060++ performance is still dirt cheap.

There's no way I'd pay for a bundled kickstart 3.1 when every machine I own already has it.

An empty flash ROM with a bundled patch for the ROM and a copy of transrom is what it should come with. Or AROS by default.

[nicholas]

You forgot £70 for tea and buiscuits.

And a further 50 quid for a T-shirt and coupon you'll never receive.

[OlafS3]

You forgot £70 for tea and buiscuits.

and 100$ for a meal

[Niding]

There's no way I'd pay for a bundled kickstart 3.1 when every machine I own already has it.

An empty flash ROM with a bundled patch for the ROM and a copy of transrom is what it should come with. Or AROS by default.

My tea comment was halfway facetious.

My point is;

IF Apollo Team decided today to go down the AOS route, and thru agreement ends up having to add 20-40 dollars to the Vampire; I still would find the accelerator DIRT cheap and well worth the money.
Gunnar has expressed rather clearly that he wants the ability to develop more advanced features, and as such, I would ASSUME any agreement regarding AOS would entail development of AOS/P96 in one form or another.
Im not privy to the details of the discussion, but I have gotten the impression that Gunnar havent found the details in the agreement satisfactory from his point of view. Thats fine. I wont villify the other side of the discussion for that reason.

Apollo Team got options if they decide against licensing, which is fine with me too, just as an AOS route would be.

Im not fundamentally against developers getting money for their work, which some seems to be.

[nicholas]

My tea comment was halfway facetious.

My point is;

IF Apollo Team decided today to go down the AOS route, and thru agreement ends up having to add 20-40 dollars to the Vampire; I still would find the accelerator DIRT cheap and well worth the money.
Gunnar has expressed rather clearly that he wants the ability to develop more advanced features, and as such, I would ASSUME any agreement regarding AOS would entail development of AOS/P96 in one form or another.
Im not privy to the details of the discussion, but I have gotten the impression that Gunnar havent found the details in the agreement satisfactory from his point of view. Thats fine. I wont villify the other side of the discussion got that reason.

Apollo Team got options if they decide against licensing, which is fine with me too, just as an AOS route would be.

Im not fundamentally against developers getting money for their work, which some seems to be.

Code that is paid for can also be Free and/or Open too.

But that's a separate issue to companies demanding we pay again for something we already own.

The law is on the side of the consumer, we would be fully within our rights to demand a refund of the cost of any unwanted bundled Kickstart ROM just as we can do with bundled copies of Windows or OS4 (In the case of buying an Acube 460 mobo for example).

Certain grumpy people who shall remain nameless might not like this but it's the law and there is sweet FA they can do about it except throw their toys out of the pram or take their ball home.

[OlafS3]

My tea comment was halfway facetious.

My point is;

IF Apollo Team decided today to go down the AOS route, and thru agreement ends up having to add 20-40 dollars to the Vampire; I still would find the accelerator DIRT cheap and well worth the money.
Gunnar has expressed rather clearly that he wants the ability to develop more advanced features, and as such, I would ASSUME any agreement regarding AOS would entail development of AOS/P96 in one form or another.
Im not privy to the details of the discussion, but I have gotten the impression that Gunnar havent found the details in the agreement satisfactory from his point of view. Thats fine. I wont villify the other side of the discussion got that reason.

Apollo Team got options if they decide against licensing, which is fine with me too, just as an AOS route would be.

Im not fundamentally against developers getting money for their work, which some seems to be.

the problem are not alone sums requested but also to guarantee future development and the rights to the sources and the ability to go a independent route without always asking. Thomas Richter admitted that the results would have been binaries, no source codes

[Yasu]

I guess one good thing is that you only need one hardware solution for all future projects as it's FPGA. You won't need to worry about future compatability issues as long as you have expandability in mind.

For these kind of projects I also think an open source GPL like solution is the best, so similar projects can flurish unhindered. This threads fight and legal, emotional and monetary issues also shows that using P96 is not the best solution.

Also, I don't think AOS 4 users are going to flee to M68k/Vampire as -- which should be very very obvious by now -- they want something different than M68k users. I bet a lot of them are going to buy an A600 and Vampire and probably enjoy it a lot, but abandoning AOS 4? Most probably not.

[Kremlar]

Also, I don't think AOS 4 users are going to flee to M68k/Vampire as -- which should be very very obvious by now -- they want something different than M68k users. I bet a lot of them are going to buy an A600 and Vampire and probably enjoy it a lot, but abandoning AOS 4? Most probably not.

True, but the problem is the survival of AOS4 depends on the growth of its userbase, which primarily comes from the pool of classic users.  With significant growth and advancements on the classic side to keep users interested the move to a NG platfrom is not nearly as enticing.

[Yasu]

That may be true, but it's a different statement altogether.

[Aegis]

True, but the problem is the survival of AOS4 depends on the growth of its userbase, which primarily comes from the pool of classic users.  With significant growth and advancements on the classic side to keep users interested the move to a NG platfrom is not nearly as enticing.

It depends on what happens next really - and by that, I mean where the few remaining devs we have choose to invest their time.

After all, we already have OS4, MorphOS and AROS competing for users as the 'NG' platforms - Vampire makes 'classic' Amiga's viable for bigger (I won't say 'better') and more modern apps and games but aside from massively accelerating Workbench its current utility is limited by the (mostly old) software available.

If all users wanted was a blazingly fast classic Amiga then that's been available for years in the shape of UAE. Right now the Vampire is a novelty (and a fantastic technical achievement) but it's way too early to say how this is going to pan out.

I'm actually quite concerned this could potentially fragment the Amiga user-base more (if that's possible) since because the Apollo core's proprietary there's no guarantees that anything new it brings to the table will be available in (for example) WinUAE, MorphOS etc. potentially resulting in Vampire-only development that shuts out the wider community.

Time will tell - but in the meantime it's great to have powerful new options for the classic hardware.

[wawrzon]

True, but the problem is the survival of AOS4 depends on the growth of its userbase, which primarily comes from the pool of classic users.  With significant growth and advancements on the classic side to keep users interested the move to a NG platfrom is not nearly as enticing.

so who are the actual vampires here? the whole years of indoctrination, that amiga is outdated and obsolete and was never good to start with, and that os4 is a real thing is going to fall in the water now? and it is again our fault or of those who provide alternatives that os4 doesnt grow winning the remaining amiga users over to postpone its decline?

[TheMagicM]

All these recent happenings have pretty much made me convinced that the sooner AROS is a drop in replacement for OS3.x the better for the Amiga community.

The death of the proprietary vultures can't come soon enough.

thats exactly how I feel.  +100

[utri007]

Has anyone tried Chris' Netsurf for OS3.5/9? It starts to be quite fast and most likely even faster with Vampire.

To get colors displayed right with PIcasso96 tester needs to edit user/choices file and put friend_bitmap:1 to it.

[Kremlar]

It depends on what happens next really - and by that, I mean where the few remaining devs we have choose to invest their time.

After all, we already have OS4, MorphOS and AROS competing for users as the 'NG' platforms - Vampire makes 'classic' Amiga's viable for bigger (I won't say 'better') and more modern apps and games but aside from massively accelerating Workbench its current utility is limited by the (mostly old) software available.

There's always the possibility of gaining new developers that were simply not interested in NG and previously bored with classic.  I'm not sure how big that possibility is.  It will be interesting to see, especially once standalone boards are available which could attract people who don't like messing with old hardware.

If all users wanted was a blazingly fast classic Amiga then that's been available for years in the shape of UAE. Right now the Vampire is a novelty (and a fantastic technical achievement) but it's way too early to say how this is going to pan out.

That's true, but many users do not like emulation and FPGA (either as an upgrade or even standalone) is much closer to real hardware.  It feels more "true" than WinUAE does, and for some that matters.

I'm actually quite concerned this could potentially fragment the Amiga user-base more (if that's possible) since because the Apollo core's proprietary there's no guarantees that anything new it brings to the table will be available in (for example) WinUAE, MorphOS etc. potentially resulting in Vampire-only development that shuts out the wider community.

That's very true.  This will be a test to see how big the active classic community is.  If they continue to advance the platform at a reasonable price and sell lots of units (upgrades and standalones) the upgraded classic market would likely dwarf the NG platform.

[Aegis]

Interesting times eh?

[OlafS3]

True, but the problem is the survival of AOS4 depends on the growth of its userbase, which primarily comes from the pool of classic users.  With significant growth and advancements on the classic side to keep users interested the move to a NG platfrom is not nearly as enticing.

People almost forgot it... Amiga world is a market too... very small but a market. If f.e. 4.X covers needs most users do not have then they do not buy it. Simple as that. Vampire or other projects do not change that or do you think people will buy X5000s because of desperation?