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BigD 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 23-Nov-2015 21:05:32
#341 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@number6

Quote:
Could you at least accept the "possibility" that Hyperion stating to everyone that "we can't issue licenses at this time" does not make this all the fault of the 3rd party h/w devs?


I don't think it's the fault of 3rd party hardware developers but I do resent them coming on an Amiga forum and prentending like there little pet hardware project has anything to do with the Amiga, AmigaOne or AmigaOS. Let's call it what it is a 'pipe dream' that is trying to do what Trevor is doing but magically do it for less money primarily cutting costs by using less reputable fabrication companies. Best case scenario is you'll end up with a buggy 'Teron' board wannabe and you'll wish you'd given us all £500 each rather than invest your money in hardware that doesn't match up to A-EON's or A-Cube's (a bit like Eyetech and I say that as a big fan of Eyetech's retail business). Actually you'd end up in a far sticker mess because there isn't even the talk of even approaching Hyperion for a license for an OS4.x port and Eyetech didn't have any competition (from any other machine that could run OS4.x) but this board would

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Raffaele 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 7:54:13
#342 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@number6

Quote:

number6 wrote:
@BigD

Quote:
Sorry to spoil the flow of the thread, some people obviously love vapourware and the whole 'when it's done' joke more than they actually like Amiga/AmigaOne computers. Long live the spirit of Troika, Adam 'ACK', Mike Tinker and all the people that thought they could do it better


ahh...you forgot about the lawsuit.
Could you at least accept the "possibility" that Hyperion stating to everyone that "we can't issue licenses at this time" does not make this all the fault of the 3rd party h/w devs?

#6


We could also free the design of the motherboard and make it being manufactured by A-Eon or ACube so then no problems of licenses for Hyperion...

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Raffaele 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 7:57:26
#343 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@BigD

I think we should contact Hyperion when we could send them a working prototype motherboard.
So then they will explore feasability of porting AmigaOS...

_________________
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olegil 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 8:04:10
#344 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Aug-2003
Posts: 5895
From: Work

@BigD

You don't seem very "sorry" at all.

I regret poking my head out and mentioning I'm a professional PPC board designer now. Apparently I'm useless as I haven't provided you with a board running OS4 flawlessly yet.

Do you EVER play nice? You know, "do unto others" and all that?

_________________
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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.

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Raffaele 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 10:36:23
#345 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

Sure I had some Alzheimer attack as I inverted cyphers of amount of money for prototyping...

It is not 570...

It is 750 euro

My bad...

P.S.

OleEgil you have a PM.

Last edited by Raffaele on 24-Nov-2015 at 11:03 AM.

_________________
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Yasu 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 12:06:25
#346 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 13-Oct-2015
Posts: 224
From: Stockholm, Sweden

I'm more worried if there is a market for another PPC board. We already have 3:

* SAM 460 (pricy, but not terribly overpriced. Acube has stated that they will make more)
* X5000 (very pricy, but most powerful of them all. Coming soon)
* Tabor (not cheap, but made to be cheaper than the others. Coming eventually)

Then we have the used PPC market too, as some people rather buy second hand for it's cheaper price.

How many afiliados do we have? A couple of thousand maybe. How many are prepared to buy a board? Maybe a thousand. How many of those have already bought a board? Several hundreds to a thousand. How many wants to upgrade? Unknown, but certainly not all of them (not important if your computer still works). How many are left that the above boards can't cater to? Very few. Unless you can make a board that is really really cheap, like 100€ cheap, then you are going to get a not terribly attractive board that will be sold long after the others and cater to a group who most of them already have bought a PPC board.

I don't doubt that this board _can_ be cheaper and better, but I doubt that when the time comes and it actually starts to sell it will matter (assuming it will also have NG support right away). Because people will have invested time and money on other boards and the relatively small improvements will probably not sway them to switch. You have to be pretty nutty to pay several hundreds more euro just to get a few more MHz or be able to watch movies in a slightly higher resolution.

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iggy 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 14:28:37
#347 ]
Super Member
Joined: 20-Oct-2010
Posts: 1175
From: Bear, Delaware USA

@BigD

Quote:
Let's call it what it is a 'pipe dream' that is trying to do what Trevor is doing but magically do it for less money primarily cutting costs by using less reputable fabrication companies.


Or, lets not. I contacted an individual that was backing Amiga related board design long before A-eon existed.
bPlan and Genesi built boards that corrected for the defects that Eyetech failed to address.
So we have a more than competent party interested in this idea.

Its worth noting that A-eon does not design its own boards.
And the spec for A-eon's first board (Nemo) came from Ack Systems and Amiga Inc., not A-eon or Varisys.
Further, I was in contact with Paul Gentle before it was common knowledge that Varisys was involved in the X1000. At that time he recommended against the PA6T in favor of...Freescale Qorlq processors.

So...I have actually been considering this for a long time (AND consulting the correct people).

Also, I have been a recognized developer with technical access to Motorola (and now Freescale) since the late '80s.
I have already been a part of a motherboard design team.
This is not unknown territory

As to Hyperion's support, they currently support the Pegasos 2 (a bPlan/Genesi motherboard). They will do whatever they see is in their best interests to do to further sales.

Quote:
hardware that doesn't match up to A-EON's or A-Cube's


Actually, I was hoping to do BETTER than that.

Quote:
I say that as a big fan of Eyetech's retail business


Well, we at least know where you come from.
Frankly, I always thought Eyetech was overreaching and its products were not particularly innovative.
Why in the world did they continue to use MAI's flawed components after they were proven to have known issues?

@olegil

Quote:
I regret poking my head out and mentioning I'm a professional PPC board designer now. Apparently I'm useless as I haven't provided you with a board running OS4 flawlessly yet.


Well, you aren't Trevor Dickinson AND you aren't buying the line that we HAVE to support specific endeavors (because, somehow, they are the 'right' ones).

Hey, people like you, I'm willing to listen to.
Someone who WANTS to go by the moniker 'BigD'?
Not so much.

Last edited by iggy on 24-Nov-2015 at 09:21 PM.
Last edited by iggy on 24-Nov-2015 at 02:29 PM.

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pavlor 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 15:24:30
#348 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9578
From: Unknown

@Raffaele

Quote:
It is 750 euro


With or without taxes?

ACube sold SAM460cr motherboards for 469 EUR (excluding taxes, but including OS4).

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billt 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 16:15:44
#349 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Oct-2003
Posts: 3205
From: Maryland, USA

@BigD

Quote:
Let's call it what it is a 'pipe dream' that is trying to do what Trevor is doing but magically do it for less money primarily cutting costs by using less reputable fabrication companies.


I thought the idea was to reduce cost by using a lower-cost CPU and minimizing features, such as tossing out the southbridge that had come up in discussion. I don't think that using a less reputable fab was a goal here at all. But to perhaps do design as some community effort rather than by hiring an expensive contractor like Varisys. The PCB fab and assembly [places do of course need to be of acceptable quality to avoid depositing things directly into the trash. Direct-to-trash isn't saving any money anywhere...

I really enjoy these discussion topics, how would we approach a design, etc. be it a pipe dream, a real progressive project, whatever, I think it's fun. If that ends up being the only purpose that such conversations serve, then that's plenty for me to be happy with it. If any real progress somehow does get made, then that's really cool.

So, sure, let's all take this topic with a grain of salt. Don't expect to be buying anything at the end so as to avoid yet another round of Escena/ACK/Troika/iWin/aBox/amiJoe disappointment, but be extra happy if we do have something at the end of this.

If you don't appreciate either reason to talk about something, you're welcome to opt-out of participation. This is, after all, an opt-in forum.

The more seriously we treat the conversation, it is that much more likely to become real. If we set out form the beginning to have nothing more than a conversation, then we've likely doomed it to never become more than that, so I do like that this discussion does seem to have some real goal in mind.

Last edited by billt on 24-Nov-2015 at 04:21 PM.
Last edited by billt on 24-Nov-2015 at 04:19 PM.
Last edited by billt on 24-Nov-2015 at 04:18 PM.

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billt 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 16:38:08
#350 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Oct-2003
Posts: 3205
From: Maryland, USA

@iggy

Quote:
OK, I have a group of basic specs. They start out simple with a T10XX based Mini ITX board, and end in an MATX T2080 based board (with an intermediate T10XX-T2081 board in between).


Every normal Mini-ITX board I've seen had one PCI/PCIe/AGP slot. No more. So expansion is limited. I did once see one development board in Mini-ITX format that had a second, but you couldn't use the second card in a case, as there was no such case with a second slot at the back. This board was "weird".

So, we have talked about the goal of simplicity to reduce costs and design complexity. I'm imagining what is essentially a motherboard with a CPU, a DIMM slot or two, and a PCIe slot, and nothing else that's not in the CPU SOC itself. That one PCIe slot will probably go to a graphics card. And then we're done with this computer. Does that give us what we want to use? Even if considering it to be a stepping stone toward the next design, which might be a bit more complex, is such a very simple board worth it? I wouldn't want an Amiga without audio. How many USB ports are in the CPU? Is that enough for keyboard, mouse, and something else? Or do we need to include a hub in the cost, regardless of if it's built-in or external?

It might be better to have more usable slots at the beginning, if the board itself is limited to only what is in the SOC pinout?

If MiniITX were the first choice, then I'd come back to southbridge suggestion again, as I'd want audio at least on an "Amiga" motherboard.

I've seen it mentioned to use the Radeon HDMI audio before. Can that be an AHI driver alone, or do we need to ask Hans for hooks in his RadeonHD driver to make such a thing possible?

Last edited by billt on 24-Nov-2015 at 04:39 PM.

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TRIPOS 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 17:59:42
#351 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Apr-2014
Posts: 1204
From: Unknown

@BigD

Everything is a lot cheaper than AeonKit H/W. The Pegasos never cost more than a fraction of the X1000, and the planned quad core 970 G5 system was scrapped when it turned out a full system would have costed considerably more than $1,500 which still is only half of a X1000 system, and this was in 2006 when computers were a lot more expensive. Somehow the AeonKit price policy has grown to be accepted as "normal" by some here. Personally, I think it has been absurd from the start, but maybe that's just me...

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ilbarbax 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 18:04:11
#352 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 17-Jan-2010
Posts: 184
From: Italy

@Raffaele

Sorry to open another front.
Rather to design another board on top to the 3 or more already existing, it wouldn't be better to push our efforts in somethings really missing for the comunity?
I think we should focus on a largely available laptop, consider to save all possible components and design just a replacement board with the ppc chip.

For sure it is acreazy idea but would give us something we miss and may be with a limited cost

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TRIPOS 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 18:05:30
#353 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Apr-2014
Posts: 1204
From: Unknown

@billt

Personally, I think on-board audio (with proper rear in/out audio connectors and perhaps internal ones for front panels as well) is mandatory.

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TRIPOS 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 18:08:17
#354 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Apr-2014
Posts: 1204
From: Unknown

@ilbarbax

Powerbooks are solid ones with great specs (for PPC) that are available for very little money...

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billt 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 18:19:54
#355 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Oct-2003
Posts: 3205
From: Maryland, USA

@ilbarbax

Quote:
I think we should focus on a largely available laptop, consider to save all possible components and design just a replacement board with the ppc chip.


A modern highend laptop is what I'd really prefer for myself as well. Rather than initiate a new effort, I'd suggest to first check into the linux/bsd ppc notebook group to see if that fits. That's so far pretty comparable thing to that in this topic, and has talked about replacing motherboard in a mass-market pc laptop, which is an approach I agree with. They have also talked with someone that posted an open-source 3d printable (or can also be made from mass-production molds) laptop shell, but I'd still go with a pc she'll and swap the innards.

http://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/

I'd have bought the old alleged netbook just to have a portable Amiga, and I have a couple iBook G4s I'd hoped to tinker with at some point, maybe with MOS at some point. I now kindof have WinUAE working on my PC laptop, and need to poke that with a stick a bit more until it works more satisfactorily. But I'd love a real native one with real OS support over an emulation, and withoutthe memory limitations of 4.x Classic.

Last edited by billt on 24-Nov-2015 at 07:00 PM.
Last edited by billt on 24-Nov-2015 at 06:46 PM.

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iggy 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 21:11:46
#356 ]
Super Member
Joined: 20-Oct-2010
Posts: 1175
From: Bear, Delaware USA

@billt

I have a 1.42 iBook that I have been running MorphOS on for about two years.
It works quite well.
I was worried about the vram limitations, but so far its done quite well (the upgraded gpu on these certainly helps).
And I have sent two of the hi-res PowerBooks to friends in Europe so far.
Those are remarkable.

While a new laptop would benefit OS4 users, until SMP support is introduced it would not significantly impact MorphOS users.
We already have good PPC single core laptops.

@billt

Quote:
Every normal Mini-ITX board I've seen had one PCI/PCIe/AGP slot. No more. So expansion is limited.


Mini DTX form factor, basically Mini ITX with two expansion slots (fits in most Mini ITX cases with room for a second expansion opening).

And I have two Mini ITX boards that also feature Mini PCIe expansion.

With a 16 lanes PCIe slot, a 4 lane PCIe slot, and two Mini PCIe expansion ports a Mini DTX board could even handle the better expansion capabilities of the T2080.
Although I do think that the Mini ITX format better suits the T1022 and T1042.

A MATX board would probably be the better format for the T2080.

Again, this all seems to point to the three options I have mentioned before.

Last edited by iggy on 24-Nov-2015 at 09:18 PM.

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billt 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 21:56:38
#357 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Oct-2003
Posts: 3205
From: Maryland, USA

@iggy

I hadn't heard of Mini-DTX before. Cool. I guess that's pretty close to what I think of Flex-ATX as, small with two slots. Slightly bigger than Mini-ITX to make room for the added slot.


I don't understand or support the idea of forcibly clenching to single-core CPUs, and intentionally avoiding mutlicore chips, until software supports multi-core. Since the AmigaOS people have made it clear they are not going to support PPC macs, I've let them gather dust here. Need to get LCD backlight working again before I can do much of anything. I tried and failed some time ago to push for interest from those who can on OS4 side for such laptops. And so now, with PPC iBook. PowerBooks removed from the equation by whatever reasons, why would we today consider a single-core CPU for some new design?

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Yssing 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 22:16:08
#358 ]
Super Member
Joined: 24-Apr-2003
Posts: 1084
From: Unknown

@Raffaele

570 or 750, 750 is still cheap.

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Raffaele 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 24-Nov-2015 22:31:27
#359 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@pavlor

Quote:


pavlor wrote:

With or without taxes?

ACube sold SAM460cr motherboards for 469 EUR (excluding taxes, but including OS4).


It is a prototyping facility. It sells prototypes not motherboards for end-users, and prototyping includes taxes and shipping.

After realizing the prototypes the designers will verify any existing bug in design and OS-Developers can realize an Alpha of their Operating System.

If necessary it requires another revision prototypes second stage.

When the motherboard reveals to be complete it can be manufactured in factories in high numbers of .

@ilbarbax

There is already an indipendent Linux developer who started a PPC Laptop project, last year ago, and now, after the donation of a design motherboard from a great firm manufacturer, it received consequently a great boost too, and seems to be entering a good stage point.
Billt wrote a a comment to you and shown also project link.

Last edited by Raffaele on 24-Nov-2015 at 10:43 PM.

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olegil 
Re: Bounty to prototyping a new cheap Motherboard with "Serious" CPU! Phase 1 (Specs)
Posted on 25-Nov-2015 12:08:05
#360 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Aug-2003
Posts: 5895
From: Work

@Raffaele

didn't quite catch this: is it PCB or PBA you're talking about? Because the price is typical for just the PCB in ATX size 8-layer custom build-up, but you're talking about "prototypes" which to me include soldering

And I'm terribly sorry that I can not agree with you guys on your spec, but do continue annoying me with not making what I want and we'll see if I reach the level of annoyance equal to "grod darnit, I'll do it myself".

Edit: I figured it out, it's PCB. But I can't reproduce your results using your service, so the link I provided earlier seems better.

Last edited by olegil on 25-Nov-2015 at 02:22 PM.

_________________
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.

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