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      /  Amithlon and my experiences with it
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RobertJDohnert 
Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 16-Aug-2014 5:09:37
#1 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 18-Jun-2013
Posts: 199
From: Raleigh NC

I had gotten a copy of Amithlon awhile ago from a friend. I just got around to installing the thing tonight after having it for 9 months and i installed it on an old Compaq Armada with 512 mb of RAM and a 20 gb HD, I had Red Hat 6.2 on it and it was stuffed in a closet. I dont get around to playing with old hardware much and after some google searching and a few e-mails I got it installed on the HD and I have played around with it for awhile. It wasnt a bad product. Its a shame it never took off. It was fast, even booting from that old PC and everything worked, surprisingly even the old PCMCIA nic card worked. Overall not a bad experience and IMO it works better than the SAM. But alas, its powered down and time for me to go back to hacking Amiga OpenLinux 6 errr I mean Black Lab Linux 6. Kudos to Bernie, it was a nice approach.

_________________
http://www.pc-opensystems.com

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tonyw 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 16-Aug-2014 10:00:29
#2 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 3240
From: Sydney (of course)

@RobertJDohnert

I don't think it's fair to say that "it didn't take off". AFAIR it went like a speeding bullet. The only problem was that Bernie Meyer and H&P fell out, leading to Bernie pulling the plug on the project.

_________________
cheers
tony

Hyperion Support Forum: http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php

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number6 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 16-Aug-2014 13:36:31
#3 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 25-Mar-2005
Posts: 11540
From: In the village

@tonyw

Quote:
The only problem was that Bernie Meyer and H&P fell out, leading to Bernie pulling the plug on the project.


Quote:
I don't know what went on between between H&P and AmigaInc.


Quote:
Neither do I. One day, I'd love to know all the true details, but I suspect I never will...


Source

That sounds more like Amiga Inc. and H&P were the ones falling out.

#6

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

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TJH132 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 16-Aug-2014 14:04:51
#4 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 28-Mar-2004
Posts: 129
From: Salem, OR USA

@tonyw

Really a shame. I think all the components that would have been in the updated product (Umilator?) were eventually released.

The first Amithlon box I built (sporting a AMD Duron 800 CPU) still runs 12-hour days three days a week recording a radio show and turning it into an mp3 for me while I'm at work. After all these years, it boots up quickly and runs flawlessly! It has a NIC card for internet (which I don't use anymore), a SCSI card for my flatbed scanner, and the audio cards for recording and playing.

The second one I built worked as a music hub for my home. Positioned in the living room, it piped digital audio from one soundcard to the front room speakers and could send play an entirely different stream to the bedroom speakers via a second soundcard. For a time, I "remote controlled" this setup with a VNC server on the Amithlon box and a client on a iBook. Eventually, the motherboard failed and rescued all my music from the hard drives by installing them in a third and final Amithlon box.

This one used SATA instead of IDE hard drives, had more memory, and generally outperformed the first one by about 100%. That was one cool thing about Amithlon, any increases in CPU speed seemed to correlate directly to faster performance -- no OS overhead bogging it down. A song that would have taken two minutes to encode on my original box would take one minute on the final one! A couple years ago, that box quit booting, but recently, I opened it up and started removing memory and re-adding. By replacing the memory from the second box with the third box, I was able to get it up and running again (although with a few BIOS errors along the way). Right now, it stands ready as a backup should my 13-14 year old original Amithlon box fail.

While a MacMini running MorphOS has become my main machine for computing (ASUS Chromebox for surfing!), there are still some programs that I have to run on my Amithlon boxes, none more important to me than DrawStudio. I've used it for years as my go-to program for graphic design projects.

Lastly, I do worry about the future of these machines because over the years I've fiddled with the Linux-side drivers, used beta software for USB enhancements and all sorts of other tweaks. I know I'd never remember what to do if I had to re-install from scratch.

TJH

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Hypex 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 16-Aug-2014 16:42:12
#5 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@TJH132

Quote:
I have to run on my Amithlon boxes, none more important to me than DrawStudio.


Doesn't this work on MorphOS? It works on OS4 so I would have thought it would work on the competition.

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TJH132 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 17-Aug-2014 2:05:41
#6 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 28-Mar-2004
Posts: 129
From: Salem, OR USA

@Hypex

Some specific problems with pallette menus, line and color menus and bitmap handling; just about all the important stuff doesn't work right.

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fishy_fis 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 17-Aug-2014 7:56:08
#7 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Mar-2004
Posts: 2156
From: Australia

Ive been a big Amithlon fan/user since it was released. Although it performs well on old gear it really shines with something a little more uptodate (relative to supported hardware). On my 3.86ghz c2d amithlon system you can do a lot of the things NG users are doing, and osometimes better (software permitting). It really is the ultimate vehicle for serious os3.x usage in my opinion.
Its just a shame its potential still remains largely untapped. Its very capable already. With more use of x86 native bins/libs, etc. and 3d support it could outdo all other options besides aros (in terms of raw performance. As it stands its merely on par with higher end ppc systems.

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Belxjander 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 18-Aug-2014 0:49:05
#8 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 4-Jan-2005
Posts: 557
From: Chiba prefecture Japan

@RobertJDohnert

I managed to build a Virtual-Machine AMIthlon install myself...

still have the vmdk (100% self-hosting AmigaOS disk image without AMIthlon bootstrap)
but I did have to set Cirrus GD chipset graphics, only a single CPU and some other options.

I also found out AMIthlon has a hard-limit of 1280MB of memory before the screen turns black and indicates there is no boot at all.

I used VirtualBox and QEMU at different times with it...always took about an hour to work out exact options to see the boing ball and tweak it.

this let me run a classic OS install quite happilly (I even had it doing some other things too)

I'll quite likely try and get that setup working again on a recent machine ...

Next time I do I will youtube the whole setup so everyone here can see it being done
rather than my saying about it and getting a whole lot of flack for a claim which is not so easy to duplicate.

whomever has AMIthlon and working QEMU-KVM installed can contact me for setting
it up ... possibly one of the more "compatible" options of making AMIthlon work generally.

Even had it actively owning access so some hardware off the host too...but that was for my own experimentation which didn't really get anywhere.

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fishy_fis 
Re: Amithlon and my experiences with it
Posted on 18-Aug-2014 3:35:42
#9 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Mar-2004
Posts: 2156
From: Australia

@Belxjander

Nah, the 1280 meg limit you've encountered is the limit for virtualizer/hardware combo you was using.
Personally Id never use it under virtualization as it suffers more than other systems. Not to say its a bad experience, but it cripples its strengths.

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