AmigaOne Hardware Design

[KDog]

Why did Amiga decide to design/develop custom hardware for the new AmigaOne platform?Since they've made a system that can run Linux or AmigaOS out-of-the-box, why didn't they just design the AmigaOS to run on x86-based hardware to begin with without the need for a custom-designed motherboard?

What advantages will we have by using a custom-designed motherboard, when there aren't really any kick-@ss custom chips on it (e.g., next-rev. Hombre). I mean, ArticiaS, AGP 2x, no firewire support... What gives? If they'd have gone with a Linux-base and worked from there, we'd at least have drivers for gfx/sound cards... I guess my point is, if you're gonna make it a custom job, then give it some rockin' custom chips.

Also, isn't the rumor that they will eventually make AmigaOS for x86-based machines, anyway? Why not cut out the middle-man, then, and cut out the custom design stuff?

[Eric_Z]

x86 as in 32-bit no, x86 as  in 64- bit perhaps...

[DaveP]

Why did Amiga decide to design/develop custom hardware for the new AmigaOne platform?

They did not. It is a ( close enough ) POP design called the Teron CX with AmigaOS routines in firmware.

Since they've made a system that can run Linux or AmigaOS out-of-the-box,

So can the original Amiga with APUS or BSD3.x

 why didn't they just design the AmigaOS to run on x86-based hardware to begin with without the need for a custom-designed motherboard?

Repeat the motherboard is not custom designed. Secondly AmigaOS is hard enough to port to PPC from the mish mash of 68k asm, BCPL and C. Call it a transition. But then do you have any faith that Amiga Inc wont go tits up and leave Hyperion to run things? I dont and I hope they do. In which case AmigaOS will stay PPC in the near term.

What advantages will we have by using a custom-designed motherboard, when there aren't really any kick-@ss custom chips on it

It isnt custom.

(e.g., next-rev. Hombre).

Vapourware.

 I mean, ArticiaS, AGP 2x, no firewire support... What gives? If they'd have gone with a Linux-base and worked from there, we'd at least have drivers for gfx/sound cards... I guess my point is, if you're gonna make it a custom job, then give it some rockin' custom chips.

It does have drivers for GFX and sound cards.

eh?

You make no sense to me bud, hope that has helped you some.

Also, isn't the rumor that they will eventually make AmigaOS for x86-based machines, anyway? Why not cut out the middle-man, then, and cut out the custom design stuff?

[KDog]

It isnt custom.

Well, thanks for the info. I guess I thought the A1-board was custom-designed since it took them an eternity to get the machine shipped.

If nothing was custom, why didn't they select better components for the base system? Why couldn't they have cranked it out in a couple weeks?

I guess what I'm asking is... what is it about the A1 board that makes it so special when there are tons of other board designs out there that were already superior when Amiga released the design specs for their system? Am I missing the point entirely?

[JurassicCamper]

1. Different flavours of x86
2. Tonnes of Different North Bridges
3. Tonnes of Different South Bridges
4. Tonnes of Differnet Bios's
5. Tonnes of Differnet Ethernet controllers
6. Different ATA controllers.

Etc Etc Etc.

Who is going to support this lot Hyperion or You?
They don't have the man power or money to support X86 boards.

The Motherboard manufacturers why should they care about helping to port the HAL to their hardware when it will only sell a few copies.

Piracy.... X86 AmigaOS will be as easy to downloads as the latest windows iso's and sales will be in the low thousands.
Only curious people who just want to have a play with a bit of money to spend will buy it.

Why bother running Amiga OS when the temptation is to great to use windows.
Just going to boot internet explorer and outlook to send an email. While I'm their i'll launch kazza to get that latest song i like. etc etc etc.

I'm guilt of it myself I hardly ever turn my Amiga on these days. Appart to play Payback now and Again. But I hope to sell my PC as soon as a decent level of software arrives.

I'm not gonna sit on my arse. I spent 5 years programming at university and I'm looking forward to start doing it again on OS4.

Look at BEOS.... Dead
Linux... Redhat is laying people off.

PPC is the way to go. Why do you think Phase5 / Bplan went with PPC as well.

Current A1 board prices include the OS so you dont need to pirate it. Whats so different to your current Classic Amiga.

I bet if you bought an A1200 8 years ago and you had no workbench disks or they forgot to put the ROMs in there you would be straight on the phone to C= / Shop demanding them.

Old amigas had a Kickstart ROMS New Amigas have the same functionally but has to be installed from a CD. Appart from thats their is not much difference.

[KDog]

Aha! Now it's starting to make sense. In other words, the A1 board is a "dongle" for AmigaOS. Well, I guess if software developers have a good idea of what hardware is supported by Amiga (a limited selection, mind you), they can better tailor their wares to that hardware.

Now, if we can just get them to ship OS4 sometime this year!

[Kronos]

and the beat goes on ......

~1700 people bought Amithlon, and that is with poor marketing, high price
legal wars and so on for an emulator.

How many do you think will buy an A1 ?

Let me put it this way:
What is better, 10000 copies sold and 50000 pirated, or 2000 sold and 0 pirated ?

People are using Amithlon instead of booting Windows like the
UAE-folks. The only SW that would be hard to sell are vinatge-ports
of Win-SW at full prices.

[DaveP]

Well, thanks for the info. I guess I thought the A1-board was custom-designed since it took them an eternity to get the machine shipped.

You would think wouldnt you? :-) No it took an eternity to ship because ( this is second hand info ):

1. The original boards to be shipped in April were tested by Alan and he found that the BIOS ( firmware ) was totally buggy causing serious problems for the development team. He polled the recipients and they all agreed to get them sent back until MAI had fixed this.

2. The subcontractors that MAI called into to fix this totally ####ed up. Hyperion took over and got from zero to a working BIOS in about three months, causing a three month delay in shipping Exec SG to the AOS4 development team.

3. Alan decided he couldnt hold out any further and announced he was shipping SE boards ( fixed by Hyperion ) in December, followed by XEs in the first part of the new year.

The minor fixes that have been found to be required ( in the APRIL chip for pegasos and a few more that are not documented publically ) have been worked around and MAI are making permenant changes.

If nothing was custom, why didn't they select better components for the base system? Why couldn't they have cranked it out in a couple weeks?

For the second part see above, for the first part well that was what was available.

I guess what I'm asking is... what is it about the A1 board that makes it so special when there are tons of other board designs out there that were already superior when Amiga released the design specs for their system? Am I missing the point entirely?

It is special because it is the first Amiga board without custom chips to run AmigaOS4.

This is also a transition, first AmigaOS has to remove the custom chip dependency that was great to start with and quickly became a problem.

You say superior board designs, well IBM has a few but you need to be able to prove reasonable volume sales are available up front in order to be a vendor.

But I think you are angling at x86. Well, as I said, get the OS reasonably portable before making the leap to x86 and x86 is going through a transitional year.

Caught between Linux and Windows on the x86 AmigaOS would definately die. Caught only between Linux and "morphos" AmigaOS has a slightly better chance.

[Paul_Gadd]

Same old piracy bullshit.

[ruffneck]

LOL
if you could be able to run AmigaOS in P4 system, then the name of it would be like PCOS4.0 I personally like the idea of custom hardware (mobo capable of running only amigaOS and linux). Altough the A1 doesnt have custom buses (like Z2/3), custom gpx and sound and even floppy), it warms heart It's not 'just hardare' you can see in BestBuy or in computer magazines. It's our very own AMIGA

@Ruffneck: I agree. :-D

[alx]

I guess that one of the main reasons that they chose PPC was that Amigas were already going that way - PPC apps for Amigas already existed, providing a better software base, and making it more familiar to existing Amigans (which is who it's aimed at).

As for why they decided to design their own motherboard - that's a less obvious desision.  For one thing, piracy would kill off OS4, so it had to be protected somehow.  I personally agree with ruffneck and Smartalec about custom designs, though.

One thing is certain:  From what i've read (and tried to understand!) in the features PDF, the entire kernel basically floats on the HAL - if that is ported then the whole OS can go with it, so it would be easy to port to x86.

[ksk]

"... what is it about the A1 board that makes it so special when there are tons of other board designs out there that were already superior ... "

That's true for x86.
But for PPC, there was only Apple and that was not an option. ArtisiaS is the only northbridge outside Apple for PPC that has AGP2x.
TeronCX mb was available in some form, it just needed finetuning before it started to be in sellable form for Joe Average... Now there exist also the Pegaos mb (which is a more polished mb), but so far it is unlikely that we see AmigaOS4 for that.

The most important thing is to get the legacy HW independant AmigaOS ready, FOR ANY HW.

[Helgis75]

The AmigaOne is really impressive, and the Articia S is a great chip, despite the fact it supports 2x AGP and DIMM, but the next bunch of MAI PPC-controllers will have support for DDR/DDR2 and 4x/8x AGP, among other things..:-) That should be when the REAL fun starts!!!

Anyway, what's important now is to get the first-production-run of the AmigaOnes out on the market as the most stable, non-buggy as possible. THEN people can work easily on improved versions, cause they will KNOW the AmigaOnes are out there on the market, so people don't have to spend even more times waiting, as they will have something to use while waiting for improved motherboards and such things, just like the case with PCs, but then again, you don't have to update your hardware every THIRD months, which is the bad-trend-case in the PC-market! A true fact it is...For the Amiga, it's more being a cult than being an old dinosaur struggling to survive, with a lot of modifications just to keep alive!

Of course, it's all about taste...

[Argo]

um, it's not a custom board. It started out in its original form as a developer board for MAI, the designers of ArticaS.