@BrandonLee

Quote:

BrandonLee wrote: @Derfs Sorry, but I have to agree that it is not affordable. By your definition, a Ferrari is also affordable...to some. ;) I'm not saying anything can be done for less, just that anything ranging from 800-2000EUR is certainly not affordable to the majority of people.

thats not my definition, thats in the dictionary.

that is exactly my point, if the only qualifier is 'affordable' then as some can afford a sam460, then affordable hardware is already here.

'affordable for most' is another matter but that wasnt how the question was asked, and why i said he should consider rewording it.

trying to help did get me called a troll though, serves me right heh

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@Daytona675x

Frankly from Polish perspective, I bought my A500 in around summer 1992 for about 3 500 000 ZL (now 350 PLN not including inflation, which equals to 85 Eur). I know this was some half-annual of the average salary in Poland back then (or more). Now if you get to the local statistics bureau, Sam/AOne500 gives you *roughly* 2 x average monthly salary, not sure total or corporate only.

But still, the thing got cheaper about 3 times for last 20 years in Poland Of course, typical desk-job salaries deviate upwards from those other influencing the average figure.

DD

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Amiga 1200 + WARP 1260 + AmigaOS 3.2

@vox

Quote:

Only if Acube starts selling SAM 440 for lower price, as current low end hardware - e.g for 300 euros board, if that is considered "affordable". There is no other currently viable solution, since PPC hardware is rare and manufactured in small quantities, while its unikely OS 4 will go x86 (and even going x86 could support only few boards, that again would be out of market in a year ...)

even e300 is pushing it, at least in the USA with current exchange rates. used hardware is always a good bargain, especially in the amiga community since people here tend to be known quantities.

hyperion could also look toward other extant platforms, like used power macintosh kit or older POWER5-based workstations from IBM, the former being vastly more feasible both from a porting perspective as well as availability/price for the consumers. but i think hyperion wants to support an ecosystem of uniquely 'amiga' hardware, so used kit from bigger players seems to be 'not in the cards' as we say this side of the pond.

i quite like the current approach, but that's because i'm a bit of a geek and hardware design is both my profession and hobby. i will say that when i considered entering the amiga world, the cost was the only thing which slowed me down. all in all, with various cases, drives, PCI cards, etc., my SAM440 totaled around $900USD -- which is a staggering amount of money in the age of consumer electronics given the performance. i'm very glad i did, and i don't regret it for a second, but it is a lot of money for someone who didn't come from the classic scene.

in any case i'm just pleased with the choices we currently have: SAM440s can be had for around $400USD, the SAM460 systems just under $1000, and the upcoming X1000, well, we don't know just yet, but i imagine it will be north of $2500. if it's less, i'll happily surprised. cost isn't everything, of course. MOS is quite interesting, and i think it's an important component of the amiga world -- but i wouldn't shell out $150 for it. yet i'd plunk down hundreds for an OS4 box. it isn't rational, but then again, hobbies aren't supposed to be.

-- eliyahu

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"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@Antique

You have strange prices in Norway...
If I compare the price of a AmigaOneX500 at Vesalia with the offerings of e.g. Dell I get this:
A1X500 incl. 2 GB RAM, 1066 MHz SoC, 500GB SATA and AOS4.1: 1044,90 EUR (Vesalia).
Dell: Inspiron 620 incl. Core i5 2.9 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 1000GB SATA, NVidia GT530 1 GB Win7 home premium: 499 EUR.

And it is clear that the Inspiron wipes the floor with the A1X500 powerwise. Of course it is not precisely fair to compare a mass market product with a homeopathic one, but it is also just wrong to say the A1X500 wouldn't be expensive. It is expensive. pretty expensive to be precise.

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My programs: via.bckrs.de
MorphOS user since V0.4 (2001)

One more argument I just came up with.

Nowadays ppl demand more, and the 'affordable' term is no much close to the one in A500 era. Those times, only selected people owned a computer. Amiga, ST, PC, Mac, whatever you name it, it was really a *fraction* of ppl.

Now everyone calls 'affordable' a piece of HW that one can easily buy after getting a monthly salary onto one's account, regardless of whether it's high or low or any other.

Take a look at smartphones example. All are subsided now, I bet their sales and share in all mobile market would not only stop growing but start declining, if one was forced to get a smartphone at (1) 100% and (2) RETAIL price (not the wholesale as mobile operators are buying at) .

So ppl demand more now, low-cost, low-end PCs are the mark of the price. Netbooks are cheap? They have no CD-rom and crappy processor but who cares? They have tiny display but who cares? Made in Taiwan but who cares since they offer a service? See that now?

1 Eur smartphone is 'affordable', 50 Eur smartphone isn't. But these aren't REAL economic prices or REAL circumstances one should build one's economic expectations upon. But ppl do nowadays, hence this very thread I guess.

DD

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Amiga 1200 + WARP 1260 + AmigaOS 3.2

@Kronos


yes, I see you've emphasized "yet"
But I really do not think that Spain, nor Italy and others come to the situation in Greece.

If I had stopped smoking a year ago, would have saved for the two x1000s

Last edited by natamix on 16-Oct-2011 at 11:14 PM.
Last edited by natamix on 16-Oct-2011 at 11:12 PM.

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@Daytona675x

This kind of calculation is really odd, because you completely forget the massive price decline in electronics since these days.

@_analogkid_

Well, I asume there was NO price decline regarding Amiga hardware... And sure there wasn't, that's why this thread here exists

And why was there no price decline?
Because Amiga hardware is no mass product and not subventioned by manufacturers. That's the main reasons why other computer hardware is that cheap.

If Amiga hardware was a mass product we'd see totally different prices on ACube's homepage

You just cannot take the "normal" electronics prices and compare it to Amiga prices.

Therefore I didn't forget anything in the calculation, in contrary: it would have been an error to account for any price declines that don't apply to Amiga hardware

Last edited by Daytona675x on 16-Oct-2011 at 11:18 PM.
Last edited by Daytona675x on 16-Oct-2011 at 11:15 PM.

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AmigaOS 4.1 FE (sam460ex Radeon 9200 / RadeonHD), MorphOS 3.8 (PowerMac G4 733MHz Radeon 9000), AROS (x86), A1200 (060 80MHz Indivision MK2), A500, A600, CDTV
Wings Remastered Development Diary

@thread,

What I don't understand is why Hyperion has not made more of an effort to port AmigaOS4.x to hardware that every current and former Amiga user can easily afford.

The problem with the Amiga community is a lack of developers and software. I think we all can agree on that. If AmigaOS4.x were available on CHEAP hardware that everyone could afford, there would be a larger chance that more software would be written for it. With more software comes more users that want to use it and the OS that it runs on.

I'm not saying that all of the developers that left the Amiga community will return to coding for OS4.x if there were only cheaper hardware to run it on, but certainly there would be less of a barrier for developers to return to coding for Amiga if the cost were low enough to make it a NON-ISSUE for most people.

We have many hardware choices today, where only a short 4-6 years ago the hardware situation was very bleak in Amigaland. Software is what is needed now, and that will increase the user base which will in turn increase the number of hardware units that can be sold and therefore lower the cost per unit when we can eventually reach lower prices due to higher production numbers for the manufacturer.

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Amiga! The computer that inspired so many, to accomplish so much, but has ended up in the hands of . . . . . . . . . .

@eliyahu #19

...could you answer my question? what price is 'affordable' in your mind...
$800 twice the price of a decent PC...
...and, are you actually interested in AmigaOS NG or is there another purpose to this thread?
Kind of... I miss my A1... Forget Darth_X, he dreams too much

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@Darth_X

Just get AROS.......

@ferrels

Quote:

Just get AROS.......

he's already a fan.

-- eliyahu

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"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@djrikki

Quote:

Many PC users ask the very same question about Mac OS X. A huge amount of people find hardware run to Mac OS X expensive, hence why the majority of the world uses Windows. There was an old saying I got taught growing up, 'You get what you pay for.' People forgot this as they grow old and complain endlessly about why product B in the supermarket is not as good as product A - perhaps it has something to do with it being dirt cheap.

Apple hardware is not more expensive because it's better quality. It's more expensive because Apple know they can get away with charging way above normal market value.

OSX and Windows are both mature, feature rich and stable operating systems that are capable of meeting the customer's expectations. That one is better than the other.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Darth_X is looking for the Amiga equivalent of an eMachine or Packard Bell, meaning that quality is not a desired component of the purchase

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@Darth_X

If you are expecting B Hermans to post here in response you are sorely mistaken. Its already quite obvious Hyperion has ceased custom support or promotion here. Which is sad as this was the definitive OS4 site and the webmaster and other mods have done a lot to promote os4 efforts and continue to do so.. this is one of my problems with Hyperion and i'm vocal about it, strangely enough i'm called a troll for it!

@eliyahu
They have never said anything about porting it to x86, but they have said it would be no problem porting it to pretty much any platform as code was rewritten with portability in mind.

But like we all know now they dont really want to do that, even though there are no technical reason not to do so.

And affordable for me would be something in the price range of a normal x86 system+os4.x costs/license.
You can get even a low end itx system with both cpu, gfx and ram for about 200 bucks or so, so that could be a nice starter/low end model in my opinion.

There is also this issue with price versus performance. I have seen quite a few ex amigans that just cannot defend the price at the moment, but would be interested if it was ported to x86 system that is both cheaper and have better performance.

Being able to dual boot with windows or x86 linux would also be a good thing since even linux on ppc is pretty far behind when it comes to software compatibility.

Last edited by Tomas on 17-Oct-2011 at 01:17 AM.

@Antique
A sam 460 is not even comparable to a low end x86 itx board when it comes to performance.
If i build my own pc i could get a mobo, cpu, ram and a half decent gfx card for much lower than 7000nok.

I would be very happy if i could get a amiga system that can at least playback hd videos while still being affordable.

Last edited by Tomas on 17-Oct-2011 at 01:21 AM.

@realize

Quote:

this is one of my problems with Hyperion and i'm vocal about it, strangely enough i'm called a troll for it!

I get where you're at, but imagine you worked very hard and invested much money in this, only to come to a "pro aos site" and being stoned to death for trying to resurrect an operating system and its hardware platform.

They took A LOT of flak ya know, and very much of it was uncalled for. Imagine you did all they did, only to be laughed at or hated by certain users every time you said something?

I think they have handled a lot of things wrong too, but I really feel they have been treated unfairly by individuals who never backs down whenever hyperion writes anything about AOS.

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On Planet Boing Trevor is God

@AmigaMac

Quote:

AmigaMac wrote: @NutsAboutAmiga Darth_X is looking for the Amiga equivalent of an eMachine or Packard Bell, meaning that quality is not a desired component of the purchase

Got any evidence supporting the idea that dedicated OS4-HW shows quality above that of a Packard Bell ?

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- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@eliyahu

Even x86 can be considered overpriced these days, if all you want is "good enough" performance. How much would you pay for a computer with 128MB of RAM, a 700MHz ARM11 CPU and a GPU that can run Quake 3 at 1920x1080 (with a full OpenGL ES implementation)? How about 25 US dollars? ($35 if you want Ethernet and 256MB) If team AROS isn't looking into this, IMHO they should. Even cooler: one of the project's founders is David Braben, who co-wrote Elite.