Who's getting the Tabor?

[SACC-guy]

How about this one... from Trevor's blog

Go daddy - X500 plus style

"You may recall that Loriano 'The Daddy' Pagni ran a Kickstarter campaign to create the X500 Plus, a special computer-in-a-keyboard case design inspired by the Amiga 500.

X500 Plus

I supported the campaign and had my X500 Plus case sent to Amigakit where it has remained for the best part of a year while I decided what to do with it. When I was in England attending the LAG 10th anniversary show, I made side trip to Amigakit's offices in Cardiff and while there I decided to unpack my X500 Plus case which was still sealed in the original shipping box. I managed to persuade Christopher Follett, AmigaKit's technician, to test a Tabor motherboard with the X500 Plus case.

To be honest it did not take much persuasion and in a very short time Christopher had installed the motherboard and had Tabor booting to to the early startup screen. I was impressed by the quality of the X500 Plus keyboard which had a very Amiga-like feel. The case also included a flexible PCIe cable which allowed the RadeonHD graphics card to be installed horizontally. The case is designed for a Pico PSU and as we did not have one we powered the Tabor with a tradition desktop PSU.

Tabor System Info Screen

The X500 Plus is also overloaded with case fans which I don't think will be needed for the Tabor board but better safe than sorry I suppose.

So was it a success? Are the Tabor motherboard and the X500 Plus a good match? Most decidedly yes and I can't wait to get AmigaOS 4.1 running on my AmigaOne A1222/Tabor system. :-)"

[SACC-guy]

I missed out on the SAM series , so I got one!

[slaapliedje]

i think this is understandable that they want to sell you a copy of their operating system on a per machine basis?

Per machine is one thing, but per motherboard too?  I know the answer, it just seems like it'd be more work to have per 'system' versions.

I'm still wishing they'd make a new A4000 PPC card that didn't cost an arm and a leg and a nut so I could use my copy of OS4 for classic instead of using it in *UAE.

[Iggy]

I apologize for going completely off topic here...

@Iggy, I coincidentally got an email stating that Big Trouble In Little China Vol. 5 had been released!  Had no idea it was even being released as comic books!  Saw your sig at the same time...

Thanks!

[SACC-guy]

The machine is the motherboard.

In for a dime...in for a dollar! (:

[dooz]

@Iggy

I respect your opinion but from my corner I see this differently I buy Tabor now (I already have it in fact) because it is suited for present functionality of AmigaOS. Tabor has 32-bit CPU and AOS4 is also 32-bit. Performance of Tabor is roughly 50% of X5000 which is OK for 400 EUR price tag. I do not think that 64-bit implementation of AOS4 will arrive anytime soon, the same goes for multi core support.

Tabor can accept 8 GB of RAM and it is a dual core system because P1022 is e500V2 dual core. So even Tabor as it is right now cannot explore its full performance under AOS4 which is designed for. Other things like PCIe slot and 800 MHz DDR3 RAM will make it fast enough.

So in my opinion....enjoy A1222 now, buy next thing when available and when AOS4 support it properly. Tabor is not expensive now so I can buy that next affordable thing again when available.

-Dooz

I don't see that as a legitimate excuse to buy something with that weak a cpu.
And the fact that it won't be able to upgrade to a 64bit OS (should we ever see that) is hardly a selling point.
Also, if the 31 bit memory limitation is lifted, then you've only got 4GB of address space (leaving abou 3.5 GB after I/O is considered)..
Further, I have X64 hardware, but still use alternative hardware.
I just don't think its such a hot idea to buy something with less performance than an over 15 year old G4 PowerMac.

Its got a PCIe slot? Will that matter when even a moderately powerful video card will be bottlenecked by the cpu?

[dooz]

This is how small tabor is. Very small mouse next to the very nice little motherboard

[ATTACH]5609[/ATTACH]

Also to compare with HD5450 PCIe GFX card:

[ATTACH]5610[/ATTACH]

And this the Early Startup Control. I am wondering what will be happen with this "Start Classic AmigaOS". Maybe it will start in 68k emulation right from the start of machine to be in some kind of Classic mode

[ATTACH]5611[/ATTACH]


-Dooz

[AmigaOldskooler]

This is how small tabor is. Very small mouse next to the very nice little motherboard

[ATTACH]5609[/ATTACH]

Also to compare with HD5450 PCIe GFX card:

[ATTACH]5610[/ATTACH]

And this the Early Startup Control. I am wondering what will be happen with this "Start Classic AmigaOS". Maybe it will start in 68k emulation right from the start of machine to be in some kind of Classic mode

[ATTACH]5611[/ATTACH]

-Dooz

That IS small. Did not imagine that was the size of the Tabor.

And the last picture is interesting....

[dooz]

There was some discussion about slow SATA directory listing on Tabor under AmigaOS 4.1 FE pre-release version that was presented on Hyperion blog:

https://youtu.be/fMSvxQIfq2w

I tested on my Tabor under Debian Linux here:

https://youtu.be/hkirsW97xGA

This is a directory listing under Linux Debian and also SATA file copy-paste of two big files on the same disc (simultaneously read-write of 1.2 GB files size). The speed is more than 80 MB/s. So this is realistic transfer in real everyday operation.

So this is how Tabor performs on operating system that is not in alpha phase.

-Dooz

[darkage]

This is how small tabor is. Very small mouse next to the very nice little motherboard

wow!! looks neat!

[JimmiG]

@Iggy

I respect your opinion but from my corner I see this differently I buy Tabor now (I already have it in fact) because it is suited for present functionality of AmigaOS. Tabor has 32-bit CPU and AOS4 is also 32-bit. Performance of Tabor is roughly 50% of X5000 which is OK for 400 EUR price tag. I do not think that 64-bit implementation of AOS4 will arrive anytime soon, the same goes for multi core support.

Tabor can accept 8 GB of RAM and it is a dual core system because P1022 is e500V2 dual core. So even Tabor as it is right now cannot explore its full performance under AOS4 which is designed for. Other things like PCIe slot and 800 MHz DDR3 RAM will make it fast enough.

So in my opinion....enjoy A1222 now, buy next thing when available and when AOS4 support it properly. Tabor is not expensive now so I can buy that next affordable thing again when available.

-Dooz

I'm feeling the same regarding AmigaOS 4.1 not keeping up with the new hardware. This makes it seem a bit risky and unnecessary to spend so much on new hardware, hoping it will get used "one day".

The Tabor, as you say, should be able to run AOS4 perfectly *today*. If there ever comes a time in the future when 64-bit is required, "Tabor 2" might be available for €400 (€800 spent in total), or you could find a used X5000 for much less than today. That day might never come though - maybe OS4 development will stop, or everyone moves to AROS or MorphOS, or Hyperion switches to x86-64 or ARM for AOS4. At this point, any of those scenarios seem just as likely as Hyperion suddenly adding 64-bit, multi core etc. and making Tabor obsolete overnight.

If you're absolutely decided to go "fully" AmigaOS 4 (no Linux or Windows PCs in your home), then obviously get the X5000 for that extra CPU power. But as a secondary system or "just for fun", while doing other tasks like rendering, video transcoding, gaming etc. on an Intel/AMD system, the Tabor seems like a more reasonable choice.

[kolla]

There was some discussion about slow SATA directory listing on Tabor under AmigaOS 4.1 FE pre-release version that was presented on Hyperion blog:

https://youtu.be/fMSvxQIfq2w

I tested on my Tabor under Debian Linux here:

https://youtu.be/hkirsW97xGA

This is a directory listing under Linux Debian and also SATA file copy-paste of two big files on the same disc (simultaneously read-write of 1.2 GB files size). The speed is more than 80 MB/s. So this is realistic transfer in real everyday operation.

So this is how Tabor performs on operating system that is not in alpha phase.

-Dooz

To make a fair comparison, you should mount the filesystem with the "sync" flag under Linux, so that it performs operations synchronously, like AmigaOS does.

[Iggy]

The Tabor,...should be able to run AOS4 perfectly *today*...

So far, we have NOT seen Tabor running OS4 software that has not been specifically compiled for its non-standard fpu.
So, when it is seen running OS4 "perfectly", then I'll believe that claim.
Right now, if I could find one, I'd buy a SAM460 in preference.

[fishy_fiz]

Although seemingly contrary to a lot of peoples opinion, the non standard fpu is actually attractive to me. Makes the hardware a little different and interesting. No Amiga/AmigaOne hardware can come close to competing with mainstream hardware anyway, so at least the spes of Tabor make it interesting to see what you can squeeze from it. Having said that though, this is from the perspective of someone who can compile his own binaries.

If I wanted more typical hardware I would, and do use an x86 machine. From a pure "for fun" perspective Tabor is the most interesting OS4 hardware available for my tastes.

I just hope the quoted 400 euro is for a full system and not just the mobo. A Raspberry Pi, with Neon offers the same sort of fun for me as Tabors CPU, and I'm only willing to add a limited premium (still 10* or thereabouts mind you) to have that fun on AmigaOS.

[OlafS3]

Although seemingly contrary to a lot of peoples opinion, the non standard fpu is actually attractive to me. Makes the hardware a little different and interesting. No Amiga/AmigaOne hardware can come close to competing with mainstream hardware anyway, so at least the spes of Tabor make it interesting to see what you can squeeze from it. Having said that though, this is from the perspective of someone who can compile his own binaries.

If I wanted more typical hardware I would, and do use an x86 machine. From a pure "for fun" perspective Tabor is the most interesting OS4 hardware available for my tastes.

I just hope the quoted 400 euro is for a full system and not just the mobo. A Raspberry Pi, with Neon offers the same sort of fun for me as Tabors CPU, and I'm only willing to add a limited premium (still 10* or thereabouts mind you) to have that fun on AmigaOS.

 propably price only for board, not for full system

[OlafS3]

from here (Amiwest):
https://oldschoolgameblog.com/2016/10/08/amiwest-2016-tabor-price-announced/

"Trevor, chief of A-EON Technology,  just announced that the upcoming Tabor motherboard will be sold for  around 400 EURO. Not bad! This will surely bring many into the AmigaOS 4  fold."