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Chris_Y 
New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 11:20:52
#1 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jun-2003
Posts: 3203
From: Beds, UK

I posted this in another thread but I thought I'd flesh it out a bit and post it here for it to get ripped to shreds.

Behold, the AmigaOne XG.
This would be a relatively small/cheap PPC device running OS4, with HDMI output and some USB ports. Upon boot you would be presented with a custom TV-friendly interface showing everything that is currently installed.
By default there would be icons for some pre-installed classic games, which would launch and run transparently via emulation. There would also be an option for AmiStore where more classic Amiga games could be purchased, as well as modern OS4 titles.
There should also be a hidden option to drop into Workbench so it can be used as a full computer.

The retro side of things will make it marketable to the masses and ensure a decent userbase - the Amiga can truly "be back" with a proper launch, just look at all the ZX Vega publicity and even the "Recreated Spectrum", which was only really a Bluetooth keyboard!
It being an open platform will appeal to indie coders and particulary ex-Amigans who will be keen to write things for for this new platform. The X5000 could be suggested as a dev machine (although an easy to use dev environment for Linux/Windows must also be available)
It would establish more mass-market hardware for existing enthusiasts.

Most of the building blocks are in place already. The only hurdle I see is that it needs to be an attractive price point, but if enough interest can be raised in advance then a larger production run should be viable.

I can't stress enough that this device must be marketed properly outside the existing Amiga community. Press releases to publications people actually read! Billboards! Trevor on Loose Women! (maybe not that one)

It could be a good A-eon/ACube/Cloanto/Hyperion joint project?

Without something like this there's no way the Amiga userbase will expand.

_________________
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz

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OlafS25 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 11:29:47
#2 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@Chris_Y

What is the advantage compared to cheap ARM or Intel based hardware? And do not say it runs AmigaOS because outside the community that is no selling point. And development of custom hardware is always much more expensive than standard off-the-shelv hardware, there are reasons why the hardware of A-eon is so expensive.

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olegil 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 11:42:45
#3 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Aug-2003
Posts: 5895
From: Work

@Chris_Y

So basically the thing some of us have been mentioning like a gazillion times already, which isn't interesting because it costs more than $9 and doesn't have the power of a $400 PC?

And you need it with a polished OS ready for mass consumption.

You know, sometimes I just wished Amigans would be a TINY bit realistic.

_________________
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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wawa 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 11:52:13
#4 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

@Chris_Y

Quote:
It could be a good A-eon/ACube/Cloanto/Hyperion joint project?


now, dont you start this kind of threads! i thought you were one of the few sane people around here;)

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LimoU.Sin 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 12:24:52
#5 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 3-Jul-2015
Posts: 133
From: Unknown

The Amiga computer is very old for most people if they have heard about it, if not they google it if they care. So try to tempt with newfangled OS and/or HW you must do it really properly, and that probably requires many millions of dollars and many good contacts far-far into the hardware and especially the software industry. You can't sell a OS/HW without Software and i'm not talking about ancient software but big huge titles software, unless you focus on retro, but then you can't come with newfangled OS and/or HW with very slow or very fast 64bit multicore PPC or x86 and absolutely no real chipset.

I think Natami was a good idea, or actual the best i have ever seen in the Amiga world, but i think its drained by all the other ideas. So me think the Amiga will and was and is only a memory.

Last edited by LimoU.Sin on 06-Aug-2015 at 12:27 PM.

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number6 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 12:28:36
#6 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 25-Mar-2005
Posts: 11540
From: In the village

@wawa

Quote:
i thought you were one of the few sane people around here;)


I think he's quite sane in saying...

Quote:
It could be a good A-eon/ACube/Cloanto/Hyperion joint project?


which means he has a firm understanding that no one outside of the current community would be interested in getting involved in such a thing as it stands presently.

But to me that also makes his other statement...

Quote:
I can't stress enough that this device must be marketed properly outside the existing Amiga community.


a greater challenge to address.

I post about people that still have Commodore and/or Amiga aspirations all the time. Fact is, the devices people cry out for already exist now and they also existed in our past.
Problem is, the devices are not PPC and these companies do not have interest in AmigaOS, beyond use of the name.

Before anyone shouts "trolling", understand that's NOT a statement against AmigaOS having a niche of its own, merely factual feedback from those that have both the means and the interest in the outside world.

#6

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PhantomInterrogative 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 12:40:31
#7 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 10-Sep-2004
Posts: 809
From: The Interrogative Lair

@Chris_Y

Back around 2005 or so, I asked the question, "What should entry level hardware look like?" The result of that thread was something resembling the SAM440ep, which actually got produced.

What should entry level hardware look like

Entry level hardware in 2015 should look far different than 2005. Even I, who used to cringe whenever anyone suggested x86, and love AmigaOS4.x, would like to see a return to the "computers for the masses not the classes" philosophy of yesteryear.

So, to continue this thread in a spirit of friendliness, what should entry level hardware look like for...

1. AROS
2. AmigaOS 4.x
3. MorphOS


_________________
I sold my SAM460ex lite... waiting for money to buy a Raspberry Pi... or a Classic A1000 with Buffee... or an A1222... and OS4.3 FE update 11

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OlafS25 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 13:26:27
#8 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@PhantomInterrogative

For AROS one of the possible entry level options is already there and there was activity to realize a native version including support for the different cores, the Raspberry 2. Additionally you could choose almost any off-the-shelf hardware, you just need drivers. "Just" is here relative, someone has to do them.

MorphOS is running on almost anything PPC related including most of the used PPC Macs and even Sam 460 + X5000 in future. And they will make a ISA shift somewhen either to ARM or X64 (I would bet on X64) and certainly select some models that are fully supported.

The system with least options is AmigaOS. Hyperion could go the "MorphOS" way and support used Macs but they certainly had done that already when they are really interested. And cheap custom hardware is impossible except you can produce and sell in large numbers what is not possible or realistic.

And even if... people outside do not care about "Amiga" today, as long such devices not offer obvious advantages there is a high risk of a financial failure. Who will take that risk? Even trevor D. is certainly not interested to throw huge sums out of the window. It is a hobby for him, some rich people collect cars or houses, he old and new amigas. But I do not believe he would take huge risks for it (more than he already has with X1000 and the successor).

Last edited by OlafS25 on 06-Aug-2015 at 01:28 PM.
Last edited by OlafS25 on 06-Aug-2015 at 01:27 PM.

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olegil 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 14:02:44
#9 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Aug-2003
Posts: 5895
From: Work

@OlafS25

1. AROS. It's hard to imagine anything more entry-level than an RPi. So why bother even discussing it

But me, I see the RPi as both a toy and a tool, just not a computing device. So even though I have one lying around, I just haven't had the enthusiasm to use it for anything.

2. MOS. I don't really have an opinion. Used Macs are possibly a useful target in large countries like US, UK and Germany, but here in Norway I've actually had a look around and there's NO second hand market. Shipping computers from the US to Norway ain't exactly cheap either, so less than superb idea for me personally.

3. AOS. I want a minimal T1020 + SB820M setup. And some extra PCIe. There's very little a T1020 + SB820m combo actually misses. Apart from USB3, which would require an FCH which we don't know how to use. If noone else does this soon imma gonna do it ma friggin self.

_________________
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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olegil 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 14:05:32
#10 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Aug-2003
Posts: 5895
From: Work

@olegil

Now, if the person who keeps popping up to insist on A70M would just sit the heck down and design a PCIe A70M plugin board that we could get cracking on drivers for, plus an SB820m (heck, even SB600) board for "legacy" drivers (X1000, remember?), I would get cracking on the CPU / PCIe mainboard. It's not THAT hard to make a T1020 boot.

I made pretty much every conceivable mistake on the P1025 proto run, after all.

_________________
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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OlafS25 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 14:06:59
#11 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@olegil

If people spend lots of money to embedded devices (the Sam series) then Raspberry 2 is at least cheap

And for what do you want to use any of our platforms today, for serious work as replacement for a desktop with Windows/Linux/Mac?

If one platform could eastablish as a easy to use fun platform then a lot of would be won. The idea to position it as competition to any of the big platforms is (to say it politely) completely unrealistic.

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Chris_Y 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 15:41:00
#12 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jun-2003
Posts: 3203
From: Beds, UK

@OlafS25

Quote:

If one platform could eastablish as a easy to use fun platform then a lot of would be won. The idea to position it as competition to any of the big platforms is (to say it politely) completely unrealistic.


That was my point really. Reposition it as a retro gaming/(and I hate the phrase) "internet appliance" type device, and you have a ready market for the retro stuff, coupled with the ability for new software to be written. It doesn't need to just be games on the PPC side; you could write a news/weather app, commission a Netflix client, or whatever - it's a computer, do what you want.

With an appropriate amount of sandboxing/abstraction, you could even avoid people having to learn the AmigaOS API. Maybe something like Hollywood would work well here.

I'm not saying my idea is the answer, just that the Amiga needs to be repositioned as a more mass-market device rather than a niche hobby computer from the 80s. Something like a Roku with more capabilities, and a huge games back catalogue that can be loaded onto it, and the Amiga name proudly displayed, would be an attractive proposition if it isn't outlandishly expensive.

@wawa

I wouldn't still be here if I was sane.

_________________
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz

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wawa 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 15:58:01
#13 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

@number6

Quote:

I think he's quite sane in saying...

Quote:

It could be a good A-eon/ACube/Cloanto/Hyperion joint project?

what so sane about it? its just speculation about what third parties motivation and interests should be based on personal demands of a user and supporter.
its just another random proposal without knowing any true backgrounds, as much in vain as any numerous previous idea popping up every few days on these forums. i thought chris would do better than this.

Quote:
I can't stress enough that this device must be marketed properly outside the existing Amiga community.


nothing more obvious than that, yet what does it mean in detail? throwing vague statements around does not help much as history tought us..

Last edited by wawa on 06-Aug-2015 at 08:30 PM.

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wawa 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 16:01:39
#14 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

@olegil

Quote:
1. AROS. It's hard to imagine anything more entry-level than an RPi. So why bother even discussing it


not so much discussion, but aros native support is still underway including some sort multicore support. when it will be achieved is another matter, at least its not talking but doing, thats what aros is best for.

Quote:
3. AOS. I want a minimal T1020 + SB820M setup. And some extra PCIe. There's very little a T1020 + SB820m combo actually misses. Apart from USB3, which would require an FCH which we don't know how to use. If noone else does this soon imma gonna do it ma friggin self.


you have been threatening us with your own hardware development all these years now. where is it?

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NutsAboutAmiga 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 16:11:46
#15 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 9-Jun-2004
Posts: 12795
From: Norway

@Chris_Y

I think it be stupid to try selling an Amiga computer running AmigaOS to masses, but you might sell a Amiga computer running Linux, to get masses to pay for the production cost of the hardware. I order to bring down the entry price for AmigaOS users down.

AmigaOS lack SMP, it lacks MP, it lacks hardware accelerated video support, it lacks IPv6, it lacks UTF8 (the Chinese will hate it they can't type there language).
Security on the internet, lack of latest SSL encryption.
Poor gaming experience, old outdated OpenGL.

Everything AmigaOS lacks, Linux have.

In addition you need dumb programs, for dump people using remote control, windows designed to be dragged with mouse and so on, it's just not a seller.

To get large preorder to get price down for the hardware you need investors, they will need a guaranteed return on their investment.

Then there is marketing costs, the profit margin on most consumer electronics this days are pretty low. And highly competitive.

http://mashable.com/2014/01/30/startup-success-infographic/

And you sort of competing with new TV's as most this are internet ready already (Smart TV's), way should people buy a extra box for that kind of thing.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 06-Aug-2015 at 04:58 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 06-Aug-2015 at 04:18 PM.

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NutsAboutAmiga 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 16:14:02
#16 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 9-Jun-2004
Posts: 12795
From: Norway

@wawa

Quote:
where is it?


They are being feed to the farm animals, for animal testing, animal testing comes first, can't risk testing on humans.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 06-Aug-2015 at 04:20 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 06-Aug-2015 at 04:15 PM.

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itix 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 16:56:15
#17 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 22-Dec-2004
Posts: 3398
From: Freedom world

@Chris_Y

Quote:

That was my point really. Reposition it as a retro gaming/(and I hate the phrase) "internet appliance" type device, and you have a ready market for the retro stuff, coupled with the ability for new software to be written. It doesn't need to just be games on the PPC side; you could write a news/weather app, commission a Netflix client, or whatever - it's a computer, do what you want.


Question is, why use AmigaOS on it? For successful commercial product you must minimize hardware and software costs. That is, it should run Linux.

Now you have two battles to fight. No, actually three, if you stick with the PPC.

(And yes, if it was going to run AROS or MorphOS I would ask same questions.)

_________________
Amiga Developer
Amiga 500, Efika, Mac Mini and PowerBook

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RodTerl 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 18:15:52
#18 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 6-Sep-2004
Posts: 589
From: Rossendale

@itix

I find it hilarious that people still call the Pi 2 a hobby machine, when numerically at least, its on par with the PC I am typing this on, certaily within an order of magnitude, and on that I play Second Life.

Or, if you really want a better example, the 3DS has BattleMiner, a Minecraft clone, which runs very quickly indeed.

the Pi 2 is stupid times more powerful than the 3DS NG.

Dont forget the Opera Web browser for internet access, Youtube channel, etc etc.

There are 7 billion people on this planet.. Most of them cant even afford a £10 mobile phone with Facebook and Java, never mind a Pi, never mind a PC.

If you want to use all the multiple layers to try and secure your code, first, use a platform that has a hardware security chip so you dont have to bother, and two, realise that no matter how much of your customers money you spend trying to make it so called secure, inside jobs and hacks will mean the pirates will be able to grab teh data and sell it cheaper. So, make it cheaper where possible in the first place. Old code, simple code, compact fast code for starters.

How come, after all these decades, that there isnt a simple register called fast fourer transform hardware block extension, given its used even more than increment decrement?

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LimoU.Sin 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 18:22:22
#19 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 3-Jul-2015
Posts: 133
From: Unknown

@PhantomInterrogative

Quote:

PhantomInterrogative wrote:
@Chris_Y

Back around 2005 or so, I asked the question, "What should entry level hardware look like?" The result of that thread was something resembling the SAM440ep, which actually got produced.

What should entry level hardware look like

Entry level hardware in 2015 should look far different than 2005. Even I, who used to cringe whenever anyone suggested x86, and love AmigaOS4.x, would like to see a return to the "computers for the masses not the classes" philosophy of yesteryear.

So, to continue this thread in a spirit of friendliness, what should entry level hardware look like for...

1. AROS
2. AmigaOS 4.x
3. MorphOS



Completely change hardware architecture is a must, yes.

Completely blank sheets is a must, completely change strategy is a must. But this should have been done, not just ten years ago but more than twenty years ago...

Only stepping in other footsteps is no good idea, something that should have been learned a long time ago if you wanted a future for the Amiga system.



The electronics and computer market is almost like a never-drying paint, and you have painted and shrunk yourself so much into a so very small corner of a extremely large expanding room, that you will never get out... me think.

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ferrels 
Re: New Amiga hardware idea
Posted on 6-Aug-2015 18:30:45
#20 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 20-Oct-2005
Posts: 922
From: Arizona

@Chris_Y

I wish I had a dollar for every ridiculous and delusional thread about how to make a new Amiga that will take the world by storm.....

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