@asymetrix

From 30th anniversary events, there are numerous other interviews with Amiga gurus and interesting presentations.

I don´t think AGA/AAA/Hombre/Acutiator architecture is relevant today - this belongs in its time, tomorrow demands new technologies and solutions.

wish A-eon could start to develop a amiga for the everyone, a new A500 or A1200 something that most could buy.

Like Trevor did say in the interview "Amiga was the perfect form factor".

@tangoone

It shouldn´t be that hard with T10XX SoC(s) from Freescale - these are even cheaper than 460EX in A1-500 and much more powerful.

If ACube (or A-Eon) releases such A1-1200 (wasn´t this name used by other hardware? ) with price of current SAMs, I would probably buy it, even though it is not portable I would like.

Acube will do the entry level and A-EON the high-end. As for new HW I don't think that it's gonna be full featured computer (read non FPGA).
IMHO AmigaForever including PPC will sell more, and an Amiga as an add-on for PC and NG too. Amiga in a joystick will sell too. This can bring cash to develop needed software and OS. I'm not sure if open sourcing the Amiga could speed up it's development but there's maybe former dev that don't even know that they can develop the OS.
As for the estimate price of the X5000 it's a bit pricey still, below 2000€/1500£ should be the max.
Other form factor than tower is welcome too, it should not scare the wife :)

Kamelito

Last edited by kamelit0 on 26-Aug-2015 at 09:32 PM.

@pavlor

I would go as far as suggesting that the T10XX are an inevitable move for our market.
I don't know who will produce the boards, but with the much lower price of the cpus I will take bets on this one.

@pavlor

I didnt make myself clear. I meant the IDEALS & PHILOSOPHY that drives Amiga.

Regarding Acutiator - its a portable architecture that uses off the shelf components.

I did not mean recreate OLD I meant use LATEST DSPs, Hardware Media accelerators of today that are 'COOL' by todays standards.

For years Amigans LAUGHED at other architectures - because they did not have GFX/SOUND etc on motherboards. We sniggered at them calling their PCs DUMB boxes that need cards to do anything useful - disposable systems.

Amiga was something 'CLEVER' and unique that did things 10 PCs could not do together !

That was FORWARD thinking, Engineers that KNEW how to build FUTURE systems ahead of everyone.

The software engineers did the same, they made code speed up by asking for hardware acceleration wherever they needed it. They built with LOVE & care.

For new systems there are high speed processors Like the QorIQ T2080 which can have 8 cores and under 100 USD each.

Ask Freescale for GPU on Processor DIE, Join hardware developer programs.

Add media processor for 4k playback, HD VDU for data register access to effects & GFX, audio chip like advanced SID, motion detection, video overlay etc.

AmigaOS plugin for UNITY 3D for easy export of games from devs from places like elance.com.

If developers know they can make money on Amiga systems - they will come in droves.

AmiStore is good, but also needs web interface for purchase + graphics showing apps and games like a cart.

Time is money for users and developers - thats all that counts.

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@asymetrix

Quote:

That was FORWARD thinking, Engineers that KNEW how to build FUTURE systems ahead of everyone.

Which on paper was impressive 30 years ago.

But as was the case then, it's software that will determine the relevance of the Amiga.

For those original ideals to survive the current OS has to go to allow the system to move forward.

@asymetrix

you sound like someone still dreaming that amiga will take over the world again and become mainstream and leading platform. That will not happen, expecially not with custom hardware. Custom hardware is expensive and would need to justify its price by superior performance. As long as you do not find a billionaire investing in such a risky venture it will not happen. Simply accept it and enjoy what you have.

@asymetrix

"Ask Freescale for GPU on Processor DIE"



sorry if i smile here but we talk about a market where sales are measured in millions. What do you think what Freescale answers if Trevor asks them?

BTW as I understand it Freescale is bought and is shifting new investments to ARM

@ne_one

to be relevant and competitive any of our platforms would need heavy changes to a degree where no existing software will work anymore. In my view there are three groups, existing community, former amigans who might use it for fun and the rest (people never used amiga). To reach the third group you would need both a completely changed OS and real new software and services (not just linux ports or updated old software). Because the third group is the biggest by far and to become mainstream again you would need to attract these people. But it would need huge investments in new software and the OS would need to be changed to a degree that it would be very different from now.

@All

I think all is said. The discussion wheater Amiga OS coulc be a leading OS again is just ridicilous imho.
NEVER without a port to modern and cheap hardware espacialliy portable devices. AND NEVER
with Hyperion. Look at the poor state and QUALITY of OS 4.1 FE.....Nothing more necessary to say...

The spririt of amiga is burning in older guys like me (48 years old) - and all we need ant want
is a AMiga 500 or 1200 with a bit more power and modern connectivity.
A true color Hires Chipset accessible directly by hitting it in Assembler an C.
a modern sound chip. AND THAT'S IT !!!

This would bring fun to demo coders !!!

MAybe some is writing a good game for the advanced chipset.....

As OS - push AROS !!!

Cheers
Andi

@asymetrix

Quote:

I would like to hear plans of ex commodore engineers creating a new motherboard from scratch using Dave Haynies Future Super Amiga Acutiator designs. I dont think that any of Next gen motherboard designers have any idea of what AGA/AAA/Hombre/Acutiator projects were, so they have no true understanding about Amiga philosophy, ideals direction for future. Dave Haynie has a firm grasp of using off the shelf parts to create new Amiga systems, for example finding the best audio chips or sophisticated Digital Signal Processors to create unique hardware. But linking what current software is struggling with today and accelerating in hardware is where Amiga excelled at - it created a fluid smooth system with low cpu usage. I do believe a 1 GHZ processor ( ~ $100) with a few DSPs and hardware accelerated media processors for 4K video playback & encoding would be a step in the right direction. Also hardware register access to Graphics system would bring the fun in "what can we do with this hardware" back again.

I agree, but it's not realistic. Things are one million times more complex today than 30 years ago. (Moores law.)

What needs to be done today to impress and be better cannot be done in the same way it could 30 years ago. Back then, the existing computers were ridiculously simple (I made one such myself using DeluxePaint, a printer, a 68k CPU and home circuit board etching.) It was not that difficult to create something amazing and revolutionary in two years, using pen and paper and a 68k CPU. (Lorraine)

Today is not about even cooler graphics, phatter sound-effects or 4k video-playback. Those things have already been invented and are taken for granted and continuously developed in the PC realm.

To make something like this but totally smoothly integrated and homogenous (like Mac), and then convince people to buy it and write software for it just can't really happen. Besides, it would not be compatible with original Amiga software at all (since it would have to be 64-bit with SMP at the very least) and it would not use Workbench, or anything similar to it, because it is an old and fairly unpractical desktop design.

So even if someone pumps in €1,000,000,000 into this (Google?, no wait, they got Android), the system would be two years old and obsolete, and it would not resemble an Amiga when it was released. Who's gonna buy it? People even complain about AmigaOne/OS4 not being enough Amiga.

Who's going to program the DSPs and video codecs? We have had video-decodable gfx-cards for 10 years, but still no video decoder and hardly even 3D.

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- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@pavlor

Yes, tomorrow does demand new technologies, which makes ppc as much a dead end as OCS/aga/etc.

Other than fabrication tech ppc is still, and this is being very generous, 10 years behind the times. Even the most powerful desktop ppc CPUs ever made struggles to compete with low power consumption, cheap as chips, portable disposable hardware of today.
If I publicly stated I wanted to pay late 90's prices for early 2000 era hardware today over and over anywhere but amiga-land I'd be institutionalized :)

Yes, there are a few modern pieces of hardware that can be used in tandem with this modern-retro gear, but it only gets you so far.
Graphics performance, contrary to what many people like to say relies on both CPU and GPU, especially when it comes to minimum frame rates.
A mid spec card with a high end CPU will perform better on average than a high end card with a weak CPU.
RAM as well,.... little advantage in using memory with higher bandwidth if older ram/busses aren't saturated (especially considering newer memory types typically have higher latencies).

As things stand OS4.x hardware is hack-ish and always will be.
Credit due to those that invested and created something, but a "modern" platform using ppc is somewhat of a paradox. Its simply never going to be anything but high priced and low performing (vs pretty much every single thing manufactured today).
There'll never be another ppc system that satisfies the masses, especially those people who like modern hardwares benefits.

p.s. little surprised at what I've written,.... was just being earnest, and this is what came out. Wasn't meant to be negative.

Last edited by fishy_fis on 27-Aug-2015 at 11:31 AM.
Last edited by fishy_fis on 27-Aug-2015 at 11:30 AM.

@asymetrix

Quote:

I do believe a 1 GHZ processor ( ~ $100) with a few DSPs and hardware accelerated media processors for 4K video playback & encoding would be a step in the right direction. Also hardware register access to Graphics system would bring the fun in "what can we do with this hardware" back again.

There is already a "ready platform/card" for this, and it's the so called "project Monalisa".

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retired

@AmigaBlitter

Do you mean Project Moana?
Can't even do 1080p on a g4 on a Mac (with its superior drivers) let alone four times the resolution at higher compression rates with inferior drivers. Not to mention a pitiful 32/64 meg vram.
Not even sure the old video cards in Mac Minis can drive a 4k display at all.

@fishy_fis

No, "Monalisa" is another project and can do 4k too, as well as many other things.

But, i can't bring the project to life by myself.

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retired

@AmigaBlitter

Never heard of it. That is, I've heard of so many "project monalisa"s that I can't think of anything relevant to this discussion.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

As much as it pains me to support/encourage this discussion with a link:

Monalisa project

#6

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This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@AmigaBlitter

Where does it say anywhere it can do 4k video?
All I see is references to 3x 1080i streams in h.264.
This is some way off of 4k requirements. For starters 4k is 4x the resolution of 1080p, plus 4k uses heavier compression as well.
Or did I miss something?
Four and a half years ago it might've been interesting. Nowadays it sounds pretty obsolete. Video encoding/decoding hardware on GPUs, and even modern x86 CPUs is more powerful.
Assuming an OS has drivers to support it at least, which no amiga-oid system does.
AROS at least can raw grunt its way to some decent results, but that's about it.

Last edited by fishy_fis on 27-Aug-2015 at 05:38 PM.

@fastbit66

Quote:

fastbit66 wrote: @All The spririt of amiga is burning in older guys like me (48 years old) - and all we need ant want is a AMiga 500 or 1200 with a bit more power and modern connectivity. A true color Hires Chipset accessible directly by hitting it in Assembler an C. a modern sound chip. AND THAT'S IT !!!

But that was also the cross that crippled the platform's future.
Quote:

This would bring fun to demo coders !!!

Another cross, with their attitude to don't follow the Commodore's guidelines...