Have they lost their mind?

[redrumloa]

I'm trying my hardest to be polite and not piss on Hyperion's parade at AO, so i will ask here. Are they serious? I found the whole idea interesting when they started hinting, but feared price would be too high. As of today, it appears that fear was not only founded but underestimated. If they are using the Sam440 as a baseline for "low end", the price of an x1000 will be insane!

Last time I checked this is 2010, multicore powerhouse systems can be bought sub $400. While details are still sketchy, it appears it will be fast by Amiga standards but not necessarily modern PC standards. OS4.x not only has no "killer app", it doesn't even have most of the critical essentials such as a working modern web browser. Who is going to buy a $2,500 - $3,000 (++++) underwhelming system with mostly incompatible ~20 year old software base?

I don't get it, do you :?:

 

[Glaucus]

I told Ben Hermans himself he was wrong to choose PowerPC over Intel back on ann.lu. Turns out everything I said was right and unfortunately he doesn't learn from his own mistakes. Anyway, I really don't know anything about recent developments so give me a link or two so I can catch up. Thanks. :mrgreen:

 

[Glaucus]

Oh, I found this: http://a-eon.com/6.html

Weird. I wonder what the co-proc could be. I heard Toshiba stuck a CELL processor on it's Qosmio laptops just for fun. The chip is powerful and probably not all that expensive (it's possible that they could use rejected chips with a couple cores disabled to reduce cost - the PS3 does this using chips with one bad core leaving only 7 good cores). It would actually be kinda neat to have but I still couldn't see that as being much of a sales driver, even amongst hardware enthusiasts. However, building a PS3 emulator would seriously make me consider buying one! :mrgreen:

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Last time I checked this is 2010, multicore powerhouse systems can be bought sub $400. While details are still sketchy, it appears it will be fast by Amiga standards but not necessarily modern PC standards. OS4.x not only has no "killer app", it doesn't even have most of the critical essentials such as a working modern web browser. Who is going to buy a $2,500 - $3,000 (++++) underwhelming system with mostly incompatible ~20 year old software base?

I don't get it, do you :?:

Well, let's not dis the new browsers. OWB is capable of handling just about any pages thrown at it. But this machine doesn't look like it's aimed at the consumer market who just want to make the latest version of Word load as fast as it used to in 1990, or first person shoot lots of triangles per second.

Dual core Power ISA 2.04 sounds cool and so does the xcore stuff, but cool for geeks not grandmas.

I'm starting to feel the need to spend money again.

 

[redrumloa]

Well, let's not dis the new browsers. OWB is capable of handling just about any pages thrown at it. But this machine doesn't look like it's aimed at the consumer market who just want to make the latest version of Word load as fast as it used to in 1990, or first person shoot lots of triangles per second.

Dual core Power ISA 2.04 sounds cool and so does the xcore stuff, but cool for geeks not grandmas.

I'm starting to feel the need to spend money again.

What will it run fast? Quake II? Maybe I lost the plot somewhere along the way. Dual core Power ISA 2.04 is just a reference architecture, no?

 

[Glaucus]

What's the latest in development tools for the new OS? SAS C was cool but it was MC68K code.

Damn, I miss the Amiga.

 

[faethor]

If they are using the Sam440 as a baseline for "low end", the price of an x1000 will be insane!

'Insane' is it depends. If the system is a power house it depends on how much of one compared to Sam440. Xena sounds cool but also let's get serious the market is now a commodity place. Low costs and high quality. The Amiga is purely hobbiest for everyone for the last decade. Raising prices in a very small market wouldn't seem to be the winning ticket IMO. I have to assume the goal is to keep an active hobbiest base enjoying their OS and not regain market competitiveness with Macs, let alone Linux. IMO the best thing to do this is an emulator or perhaps AROS type of project. People are getting more use to running systems in an emulator, at least the geeky computing hobbiests. I really don't see why we need to have a dedicated motherboard. If the X1000 isn't faster and comparably costed to my quad core X86 emulating an Amiga then for me I don't see the point.

 

[smithy]

Good luck to them. Being an Amiga fan for the last 15 years I am, of course, tempted to buy one.... but:

All my 'leisure computing' consists of coding in Java and playing Eve Online. So I don't know what I would do with a new Amiga. Case in point, I used to own a Peg2 but hardly ever used it.

I'd happily pay a premium for AmigaOS and run it on my PC instead of new hardware that I don't really have space for.

I really hope they promote them to users beyond the current Amiga userbase. The AmigaOnes seemed to be targetted squarely at Amigans with seemingly no interest in expanding the userbase beyond.

@red about the price:
Niche/specialist/hobbyist gear always costs more, so it's not really fair to compare bang/buck with a cheap PC. But I agree that $2500 would be far too much. I think a £700 - £900 price would be reasonable.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Dual core Power ISA 2.04 sounds cool and so does the xcore stuff, but cool for geeks not grandmas.

I'm starting to feel the need to spend money again.

What will it run fast? Quake II? Maybe I lost the plot somewhere along the way. Dual core Power ISA 2.04 is just a reference architecture, no?

What browser does your car run? What good is it if it can't surf the web. Do you own a chainsaw? Can IT surf the web?

On the other hand - can your $400 mobo take you down to the mall or lop off a 4 inch thick branch?


From a geek point of view the x1000 seems to contain a lot more PowerPC than any Amiga I've ever owned. And the xcore stuff just seems like it would be fun to play with. Having one chip or several instances of one programmable chip to do all the I/O is kind of cool. Adding connectors would require very minimal hardware and a s/w change. Rolling your own I/O sounds like fun too. Want MIDI? wire up the right pins and change the code. I2C? same deal.

Also having chips that can just be set up to churn through streams of data doing encrypt/decrypt/encode/decode/ etc stuff on their own without slamming the caches with context switches several times a ms should make realtiming time sensitive data easier.

It just seems like it would be fun to play with - which is the kind of computing I've enjoyed. That's not what the average user buys a computer for though. On the other hand, it's dumb to try to compete with those things because ... you can't.

 

[redrumloa]

@red about the price:
Niche/specialist/hobbyist gear always costs more, so it's not really fair to compare bang/buck with a cheap PC. But I agree that $2500 would be far too much. I think a £700 - £900 price would be reasonable.

I know everything costs more in a retro market, I know all too well :wink: I paid a stupid high amount for my 2nd hand CMD SuperCPU 128(accelerator for the C128/C64). But things are getting better. In the C= 8 bit market a ton of aftermarket goodies are coming out with reasonable prices. Mass storage solutions $60, ethernet adapters $50

Granted this whole new motherboard is a serious undertaking. I applaud them for the effort, but I fail to see where they will be successful in a high end price range. You mention £700 - £900, but that is below the Sam440 range (which they stated is the bench mark for low end to them and the x1000 will be high end). JMHO I think their focus is off. Like you, I don't see what this could do for me. The MorphOS team is a little late, but targeting 2nd hand PPC Macs is a good move. If they can support g4/g5 Power Macs in the near future, I may buy MorphOS2.0. We are muddled in a deep recession, not only the USA but pretty much globally. Who's going to buy a high end system, if it really is high end, without significant software support?

 

[redrumloa]

From a geek point of view the x1000 seems to contain a lot more PowerPC than any Amiga I've ever owned. And the xcore stuff just seems like it would be fun to play with. Having one chip or several instances of one programmable chip to do all the I/O is kind of cool. Adding connectors would require very minimal hardware and a s/w change. Rolling your own I/O sounds like fun too. Want MIDI? wire up the right pins and change the code. I2C? same deal.

Also having chips that can just be set up to churn through streams of data doing encrypt/decrypt/encode/decode/ etc stuff on their own without slamming the caches with context switches several times a ms should make realtiming time sensitive data easier.

It just seems like it would be fun to play with - which is the kind of computing I've enjoyed. That's not what the average user buys a computer for though. On the other hand, it's dumb to try to compete with those things because ... you can't.

If it really does all that, would it be worth $3,000 to you when you can get the X-core development kit for $99?

https://www.xmos.com/products/developme ... opment-kit

I don't mean to sound like a sourpuss here and don't want to throw anyone off from buying one. Just trying to wrap my head around it all here. Price alone will keep me away, if it really is in the ballpark of $2,500-$3,000 for entry.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

What's the latest in development tools for the new OS? SAS C was cool but it was MC68K code.

gcc

 

[redrumloa]

What's the latest in development tools for the new OS? SAS C was cool but it was MC68K code.

gcc

StormC? I heard that was buggy. Or is there a free gcc now?

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

If it really does all that, would it be worth $3,000 to you when you can get the X-core development kit for $99?

Or the XS1-G dev kit for $999.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

What's the latest in development tools for the new OS? SAS C was cool but it was MC68K code.

gcc

StormC? I heard that was buggy. Or is there a free gcc now?

StormC wasn't gcc, and it had bugs but for the most part I liked it. It didn't do some C++ isms very well but I worked with it quite a lot.

However, StormC ended up dropping their own compiler and adding in Gcc (stormC was an IDE, not just the compiler).

The SDK for OS4 comes with gcc. And, yes, it's a free download.

 

[faethor]

What browser does your car run? What good is it if it can't surf the web.

Anyone I want...FoMoCo is introducing wireless WiFi hotspots in it's vehicles with the latest generation of SYNC with factory installed 3G Modems. GM is doing dealer installed WiFi options.

Do you own a chainsaw? Can IT surf the web?

My chainsaw requires it.

You asked.

 

[Glaucus]

Do you own a chainsaw? Can IT surf the web?

My chainsaw requires it.

They could probably sell way more of those then x1000's.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

What browser does your car run? What good is it if it can't surf the web.

Anyone I want...FoMoCo is introducing wireless WiFi hotspots in it's vehicles with the latest generation of SYNC with factory installed 3G Modems. GM is doing dealer installed WiFi options.

I know you are just being silly because soon fridges and shoes will have WiFi and all kinds of stuff but - which would you buy yo surf the web (if that is what you wanted to do) a car or a 400 dollar PC?

I'm pretty sure that you would be getting the car for other reasons first.

 

[Glaucus]

If it really does all that, would it be worth $3,000 to you when you can get the X-core development kit for $99?

Or the XS1-G dev kit for $999.

Or you could just spend $2000 on Sony's PlayStation 3 Dev Kit (which comes with a specially modded PS3). If the x1000 is supposed to appeal to those who like to tinker with exotic hardware, I'm not sure how it'll compete against superior hardware at lower cost - plus an actual chance to make some money.

 

[Glaucus]

I'm pretty sure that you would be getting the car for other reasons first.

Or you can spend the cost of a small used car and get an x1000 that can't surf the web! Sorry, couldn't resist. :mrgreen: