Can you imagine? A1200 Reloaded + Mediator + Vampire +...

[kreciu]

Send me the parts..I would love to do that type of project...so count me in on building Amigas at home.

Rich

It will never happen , but that would be definitely amazing to "build" your own computer.

People got rights for 3.1 ROM, AmigaOS 3.1 etc. basically someone would need to produce few hundreds of GBA1000 mobos, sell them with all components + 3.1 ROM and AmigaOS3.1 floppies.

I think this could be even sold OUTSIDE of Amiga world. I really think there is plenty of people who would love to solder this kind of stuff.

BTW. This kind of project could result in divorce... I hope not!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Desktops are dying? Where did you made this observation?

From the published sales figures and stock prices of every major PC manufacturer with the exception of Apple.

[QuikSanz]

Desktops/Towers will never die out completely. The only thing to have for a serious workstation or top notch games machine.

[slaapliedje]

From the published sales figures and stock prices of every major PC manufacturer with the exception of Apple.

This is oddly more akin to what others have said, there is a decrease in need for people to upgrade.  Only people who are still upgrading their desktop systems more than every 5 years or so would be gamers, and even then you have some people that only play World of Warcraft, and it's not like that's a very demanding game in current computer terms.

Apple's stock prices aren't going up due to their cylinder computers, that's for sure...

Oddly when I was hired on at my current job, they supplied me with a Dell tower running Windows 7 with a xeon in it (so hardly a typical desktop computer) and a macbook pro (which I hate).  Granted I setup up a dual boot of Debian on that Dell tower and use vmware on the mac to use Debian there, but the point is, companies still buy desktop systems for their employees, even when supplying them with laptops as well.  So it's not dying by any means, people just don't need to upgrade that often anymore, or if they are, they upgrade the desktop they have instead of buying a new machine.

[majsta]

Interesting topic
But I would like something to add.
Normally we will build V500/V1200/V4000 and lot of the things are done. I m satisfied how designing is going because we are doing lot of things in parallel. But it is only matter of time when project will go beyond being "just" an accelerator and become standalone system. In fact right now Vampire card with few soldered wires can behave as a standalone system. Right now no one can compete with our design and only right way to go is standalone system and that makes perfect sense. For standalone system we want to aim for much higher values than on accelerators. Start thinking about Apollo core and ASIC and start thinking about gigahertz 68k and lots of ram. For that part of the story we will need to find good and trusted partners and we made some good contacts so far.

[Machico2012]

After all these great news about vampire, i was wandering how about a more powerful fpga chip and its effects on amiga when it comes to satisfy our actual daily computing needs... i guess i have my answer :-) keep strong majsta and team mates!

[Niding]

Thanks for the info Majsta!

With modern ethernet and decent USB performance for fast filetransfer, Workbench 3.x can be quite viable to use day to day. Espesially if termills completes his Office package.
I spent several hours yesterday transfering files from my wintel machine, and the filecopy speed was rather painful.

Either way, Im a guarranteed customer for the A1200 Vampire, AND the standalone system.

EDIT;

And when I say "modern", I should probarly say "reasonable" level performance. Its important to remember this is a hobby level project, and Amiga WB 3.x is anicent OS with hobby level support from bedrom coders

[psxphill]

I'd like some new FPGA hardware with PCI slots.

It makes more sense to use PCIe or mini PCIe.

Someone would need to write software for it, but they could also implement commodores RTG plan (in one of the PDFs floating around).
For extra bonus points implement the DSP and all the other AGA extras that they never had the time/money to do.

[kreciu]

I think many of us simply would like to have Amiga that can be USED like regular computer (WOW!). Comfortably.

What does it mean?

- browse internet
- write letter (or two)
- make few figures and tables
- make a presentation
- make a budget
- browse my pictures
- listen to music
- check email
- print from my wifi printer
- play Canon Fodder

Seriously, 99% of us do not need anything special (Amiga itself would be quite special... and that is one reason I'm using it).

Considering that Amiga users survived so long time I would assume there is quite large "customer base" to support development of NEW hardware/software.

Only problem I see is luck of coordination among people engaged in development of Amiga hardware and software. There are people who are more then capable to do "stuff"... it seems their efforts are kind off random as a whole, not as particular projects - here FULL respect to those who develop hardware - I would not be using Amiga without you... people! ). Please don't stop...

I think that current development of A1200 new case show how much people are interested in this kind of projects and in general "retro" Amiga's. Now, we need fast (and USEFUL) guts for this case.

Amiga can SURVIVE only as a some kind of DIY computer + system. Regular people have completely no interest in AmigaOS and Amiga never will be an Apple kind of alternative to people who want to be "different".

Question: How to make it happen?

[Olecranon]

AFAIK they're going to be compatible with A1200 cases, too.  Hence the huge demand for new A1200 cases (the big Kickstarter project from last year), etc.  There's going to be another Kickstarter for keyboards, presumably after the cases ship.

Again, this makes zero sense to me.

Instead of being able to use one of the thousands of readily available cheap cases and keyboards, we need multiple kickstarters to make the boards usable (unless you happen to have a dead A500 laying around to cannibalize).

I don't know why people love the wedge.  Yes, I had an A500 back in 1987, but I dumped that thing for an A2000/A3000 as soon as I could.  The wedge cases weren't made because they were cool or trendy, they were made because they were cheap.

Why pick an A500/A1200 form factor over and A3000/A40000 for factor?

[Niding]

@kreciu

Apollo/Vampire crew has gone about it in a smart way. They are quite informative, altho not overly so. They are quite available to the "common man" thru IRC (and some forum presence).
So people on IRC picking their brains will funnel the information onto forums, leaving the team to focus on development. Seems like a smart way to go about it.
People feel connected to the project since its very visible and open.

As far as development of the classic "scene". One of the things that annoys me is every program seems to be missing xyz library or third party program.
When I came back from my Amiga hibernation, reinstalling things, getting it to work, was quite annoying. Going thru SnoopDos, seeing whats missing, and figure out what to do.
There are packs that takes some of that grief out of the process, but I still wish the standard was that EVERYTHING you need to get X program to work is included in the archive/folder/installscript. So if I installed said program on a completely clean WB 3.1 system, it would work.

[Iggy]

Again, this makes zero sense to me.

Instead of being able to use one of the thousands of readily available cheap cases and keyboards, we need multiple kickstarters to make the boards usable (unless you happen to have a dead A500 laying around to cannibalize).

I don't know why people love the wedge.  Yes, I had an A500 back in 1987, but I dumped that thing for an A2000/A3000 as soon as I could.  The wedge cases weren't made because they were cool or trendy, they were made because they were cheap.

Why pick an A500/A1200 form factor over and A3000/A40000 for factor?

Well, these days I favor Mini ITX or DTX cases, but I am with you on this.
Wedge cases with an incorporated keyboard make no sense.
I want my keyboard seperate from my system.
heck, I'm holding my desktop keyboard with one hand right now while typing.

[nicholas]

@kreciu

Apollo/Vampire crew has gone about it in a smart way. They are quite informative, altho not overly so. They are quite available to the "common man" thru IRC (and some forum presence).
So people on IRC picking their brains will funnel the information onto forums, leaving the team to focus on development. Seems like a smart way to go about it.
People feel connected to the project since its very visible and open.

As far as development of the classic "scene". One of the things that annoys me is every program seems to be missing xyz library or third party program.
When I came back from my Amiga hibernation, reinstalling things, getting it to work, was quite annoying. Going thru SnoopDos, seeing whats missing, and figure out what to do.
There are packs that takes some of that grief out of the process, but I still wish the standard was that EVERYTHING you need to get X program to work is included in the archive/folder/installscript. So if I installed said program on a completely clean WB 3.1 system, it would work.

 http://www.geit.de/eng_grunch.html

[kreciu]

@kreciu

Apollo/Vampire crew has gone about it in a smart way.

I know, those people are AMAZING, to take a lead in their projects. What I'm trying to say we need some kind of "Steve or Bill" in Amiga World. We need a face of a "leader" and at this point there is nobody like that. Sorry!

One of the things that annoys me is every program seems to be missing xyz library or third party program.

Same here, I just come back after hibernation to Amiga and... trying to install ANYTHING is as your wrote. My personal favorite is: Folder will NOT be created or "Where should I install xcvcvd.xsf file" (and I have not IDEA what this file/program is for!). It is like I need to read manual to install software (stinks like a Linux ). BTW. No, idea of using software is not about "go figure" how to install it.

I was happy to see, that AmigaStore is kind of curating software and installation process...

[Niding]

http://www.geit.de/eng_grunch.html

Thanks!

Looks nice.

Tho when trying to start the program SnoopDos tells me I need to install

petunia.library, aros.library, cgxdither.library and NList.mcc

[nicholas]

Thanks!

Looks nice.

Tho when trying to start the program SnoopDos tells me I need to install

petunia.library, aros.library, cgxdither.library and NList.mcc

Petunia is the 68k emulator on OS4, what are you running this on?

The 68k version should just need MUI and NList.

http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/mui38usr
http://aminet.net/package/dev/mui/MCC_NList-0.120

You probably don't even need to install NList as the version that comes as part of MUI should be enough to get it up and running I think.