@ssolie

There is nothing more about dropping the PV-LT or anything of that nature.

Not forgetting it would be financial suicide for ACK to stop now... (I don't think stuff like the A1200 connectors can be returned for a moneyback)..

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@PulsatingQuasar

Quote:

PulsatingQuasar wrote: I think that the Elbox Dragon will arrive before any OS 4 hardware

My first instinct was to laugh out loud.
My next reaction was that, unfortunately, the statement has a 50% chance of being true

I'm surprised anyone who has been following the Amiga saga for at least the last 12 months still believes the dragon coldfire board will ever exist.
The Sam announcement was hopeful, and I'd like to see it (or indeed any AOS compatible board) released in the future.
In the meantime I'll just carry on using the classic and a PC.

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@Akiko
Quote:

I was watching the Amiwest stream and also heard Jen sarcastically remark that Adam had so far failed to purchase the 1200 connectors he ordered.

I happen to know the full story behind that remark since I was there and I have talked directly to those involved. In short, thanks to the licensing problems, ACK has not been able to move forward on any of his plans.

The fact of the matter is that ACK had not yet paid for the order as of the show date and therefore the connectors were not yet being made.

No plans have been scrapped just yet but you can imagine there are a lot of changes going on at ACK to try and recover from the Amiga license stonewalling.

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@ssolie

Now I feel justified in my decision to not wait any longer and buy a Peg II system. I hope that someday I can run MorphOS and AmigaOS4 side-by-side on this system but until that day, I'll be satisifed to run Amiga applications under MorphOS and use my classic A1200 for older Amiga apps that use the custom chips or just use UAE on the Peg box.

I've been waiting 2 years for new hardware. I know that sounds laughable to those who have waited much longer but I only decided to dust off my classic A1200 about a year ago and started looking for modern hardware about year earlier. I'm just not willing to wait forever for hardware. Until the licensing scheme for AmigaOS 4 is more flexible and open to use on other platforms, interest and patience will continue to wane. It's the perfect plan to kill AmigaOS. Restrict the license to non-existant hardware and poof, you have nothing!

@Boot_WB

That would give you an immediate indication about what I think about the current offerings for OS 4 hardware. Unfortunately!

For instance I can understand partly why AInc demands a minimum of 500000 dollar a year a company should make to be considered for a license. It's less likely to destroy itself within no time. They don't demand 500000 of earnings on Amiga hardware. They just want a company that can maintain itself.

Eyetech failed amongst other things in the corporate world because it was deemed to risky by those big companies to revolve their products around the industrial board of the micro AmigaOne because it was very likely the company couldn't maintain itself incase of a setback. And they were right. Eyetech folded after a setback.
Why would that be any different with any of the new companies offering motherboards.

On the other hand. AInc may ask to much for a license to be viable. If Hyperion is really in talks with AInc than I hope it is resolved soon because these corporate ninnies irritate the hell out of me.

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@ssolie

Quote:

No plans have been scrapped just yet but you can imagine there are a lot of changes going on at ACK to try and recover from the Amiga license stonewalling.

Yes, I can imagine.

@wegster

I spoke with him after the Amiwest show, but because that is private and subject
to the rules of this wegsite (Heh!) regarding privacy, I can not elaborate.
I think ssolie's understanding and explanation of the situation is best for me
to adopt for the time being. But others have their own experience to draw upon
here and I certainly don't ask anyone to blindly follow.

re:the "options" I mentioned. No comment.

#6

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@Boot_WB

Quote:

I'm surprised anyone who has been following the Amiga saga for at least the last 12 months still believes the dragon coldfire board will ever exist.

Elbox has atleast proven themself capable of producing amiga hardware in the past. This cannot be said for any of the other announced projects.
So yes, i do indeed have more faith in Elbox even though i kinda find that project a bit doubtful after all this time as well.

@PulsatingQuasar
Quote:

For instance I can understand partly why AInc demands a minimum of 500000 dollar a year a company should make to be considered for a license. It's less likely to destroy itself within no time. They don't demand 500000 of earnings on Amiga hardware. They just want a company that can maintain itself.

But what company in the amiga world meet these kinds of ridiculous amounts? It seems to me that Amiga INC set this limit because they know that no amiga company can match those demands. Easy way to kill of the classic without breaking the so called contract. I wonder if Amiga INC themself has this revenue?

I believe we would have had hardware ages ago if it wasnt for amiga inc trying to sabotage ever attempt made.

I wonder why we havent heard a single word about this new exciting platform that was supposed to have been announced at amiwest.

@Boot_WB

O yeah and also, on the Dragon thing, I am indeed very doubtful that the product will materialize but I can also imagine that certain of the bugs in the ColdFire might have been such a problem for the specific case the Dragon is working in that the product might have become unsellable even with workarounds.

And imagine this:
- after months of testing and programmers and designers doubting their every piece of code at Elbox or another company they say to Freescale; we have found a bug;
- they say no you didn't because you didn't use it properly;
- after some time; oh ....eh..... you did; we will fix it;
- we found another;
- I doubt it;
- oh ... wait.... you actually did;
- here is a fixed one;
- hey, it is fixed.

After a year and a half all critical performance related bugs are finally out. Because this is how big stubborn companies work.

Last edited by PulsatingQuasar on 02-Nov-2006 at 11:13 PM.

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@Tomas

Quote:

But what company in the amiga world meet these kinds of ridiculous amounts? It seems to me that Amiga INC set this limit because they know that no amiga company can match those demands. Easy way to kill of the classic without breaking the so called contract. I wonder if Amiga INC themself has this revenue?

I think the point is that they're not looking at companies that exist solely in the Amiga world - there isn't the market there just now to make a viable and profitable business unless the bulk of revenue is from some other means.

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@PulsatingQuasar

Quote:

PulsatingQuasar wrote: @Boot_WB For instance I can understand partly why AInc demands a minimum of 500000 dollar a year a company should make to be considered for a license. It's less likely to destroy itself within no time. They don't demand 500000 of earnings on Amiga hardware. They just want a company that can maintain itself.

They only need one company that can maintain itself to ensure that there is no repeat of the A1 boards disappearing from the market. Hopefully once a company of that size produces licensed hardware, they'll allow smaller players in.

Hans

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@Tomas

It doesn't have to be an Amiga company per say. It could even be another type of company that makes millions making other stuff that doesn't need to live of this one product to survive.

That's the biggest problem now. None of the current companies can survive if the Amiga motherboard doesn't sell good enough. They will all fold in such a case.

And that whats worries me about the Samantha for instance. Is this their main product or can they survive if the motherboards aren't sold for months in a row? For geek products this is no problem because they spend their private money on it and it just SUCKS if their hobby stops.
For a company revolving their products around the Samantha it WILL be a problem because they don't have a product anymore.

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@PulsatingQuasar

The impression I got was that Sam was not primarily going to be sold as an Amiga desktop solution - just that it was theoretically capable of doing so and they were seeking a licence to permit that option. Moana would then come along later as the main desktop offering once they'd managed to get enough Sam orders out the door. Therefore I would have thought that they must be looking to other markets to make their money.

Perhaps I'm way off target there and reading too much between the lines- feel free to correct!

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@unclecurio

Quote:

unclecurio wrote: @Tomas Quote: But what company in the amiga world meet these kinds of ridiculous amounts? It seems to me that Amiga INC set this limit because they know that no amiga company can match those demands. Easy way to kill of the classic without breaking the so called contract. I wonder if Amiga INC themself has this revenue? I think the point is that they're not looking at companies that exist solely in the Amiga world - there isn't the market there just now to make a viable and profitable business unless the bulk of revenue is from some other means.

But who the hell outside of the community would invest money in AmigaOS considering all the other alternatives out there? The only who is currently interested in the platform is us in the community. Amiga might not get rich from handing out licenses, but they dont really have anything to lose either. At least this way they would get some developers adding to the software base, which in turn might actually make the OS more interesting commerically at a later date. But as it is now, it is nothing more than a hobby platform. No one from the outside would invest in a OS without any software.

@unclecurio

That's what I read also.

But who are these 3 companies behind the Samantha? Do they need it to sell at a certain amount of boards per month? Can they survive an initial faillure?

AInc would ask:
How do you guarantee to me this Eyetech deal doesn't happen again? Can you maintain yourself? How can you guarantee to me that you still exist 2 years from now, are heallty and can produce the Samantha or it's replacement regardless of the amount you sell? How much do you depend on this product?

A possible customer to create a product around the Samantha would ask:
Can you guarantee to me I have access to that board or replacement 2 years from now for my product to continue. I have 20 people on the payroll, working 1 year to create this product. I want those investments earned back and make quite some money on it. How are you going to guarantee to me that I can still make my product 2 years from now? How much do you depend on this product?

The point of the customer is the biggest problem right now. It is why Eyetech failed in the corporate business and why any other motherboard will fail if it can't answer positive on at least these questions and probably many more.

Last edited by PulsatingQuasar on 02-Nov-2006 at 11:30 PM.

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@unclecurio

No you're not off the mark at all. It has been stated that the Sam is designed for customers outside of the Amiga markets. It is disk-on-chip ready at the request of one customer and has a connector for LCD touhscreens.

I hope that Hyperion add support for touchscreens to OS4, this would make Amiga a more viable option for multimedia solutions.

For more details of Sam read Elwood's post here.

@PulsatingQuasar

Quote:

The point of the customer is the biggest problem right now. It is why Eyetech failed in the corporate business and why any other motherboard will fail if it can't answer positive on at least these questions and probably many more.

Eyetech first tried to market the Amiga OS4 to outside customers, I think they managed to do this quite well using an expanded CD32 system with 3.x. The problem was that they were unable to deliver because OS4 did not exist at that time and took a lot longer than they anticipated. So on that part it was down to bad timing, but I think they were probably in quite a desperate position by that point.

Their Amiga retail business would have been on a steady decline and with ever dwindling stocks of new classic Amigas there industrial and entertainment systems business would have been unsustainable.
U.K dealer White Knight shut shop when they could no longer obtain PPC cards on which their industrial system relied by that time.

Also the selection of the Mai Teron as a next generation was a bad move but then again there wasn't much alternative at the time. With OS4 taking longer than they had hoped Eyetech turned to Linux to help boost sales. This could have worked had it not been for the Hardware bugs that came to light.
Terra Soft had made a deal with Mai which could have sustained the development of the Articia series, but when the bugs came to light they lost confidence and terminated the deal.


The difference with the Sam product is that the companies behind it have designed the board with industial markets in mind rather than it being an after though.

Without the pressures Eyetech had at that time, they have been able to take a year to evaluate the viability of such a system and then spend another 6 or so months actually desiging the hardware.

I think they have a much better chance with this machine.

If this is the actually the case, then it could be another year before we see anything from anyone!

Kind of makes me ponder about something that is kind of ironic really. In all of the time that we have been waiting for new PPC hardware, all the while arguing about what hardware, whether virtual or physical, AOS4 should be able to run on, be it PS3s, PEGs, Macs, QEMU, x86, EFIKA, etc...it could have been ported to many of the said hardware platforms. It has been 2 years already, and now it looks like we'll be waiting close to another year! Makes you wonder how many more years it will be before the stated holy grail - an AOS4-based embedded device - will come to market?! In the meantime, we still have some people saying that the PPC architecture is AOS4's only future. If this is true, then EXTINCTION IS AOS4'S FUTURE.

ACK's boards seemd to be our best hope to get AOS4 out this year or early next year, but at this point, I'm doubtful we'll see anything on the shelves and stockrooms for sale before next summer at the very earliest.

Don't know about most of you here, but the only proverbial light a the end of the tunnel I'm seeing for AOS4 is the one that leeds it to end up six feet under at this point.

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@ssolie
So your suggesting "the name" would be the only AInc-IP used in OS4 ??

I doubt that Hyperion would find any judge (not even a stupid german one ) buying in on that kind of story...

@Amikit

Sure doing HW is expensive, but thats something well known long before these people started their projects. And may I say one of the main reasons why I never had much trust in these Couch-Table-Incs.

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I still think all the "hardwareannouncers" are afraid from each other. Spec's are most of the times comparable in the end and not so much better as the Eyetech hardware. Endresult is that they all take a small part of the cake and not a singel one is going to earn back what he invested when the board is only running OS4. It should at least run Morphos also to have more customers. Samantha is the one that makes the most chance I think to survive this battle.

What the Dragon concerns ... It makes a good chance of surviving since it does not have to compete with OS4 hardware and if it works ... a lot of people are going to buy it. Especially when it's there before OS4 hardware. I think a lot of people have already saved twice the amount needed for an OS4 board now that they are waiting that long.

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