@Signman

Quote:

Majsta and company should emulate Jens' operation, it's a business first and foremost.

Therein lies the dilemma with the Apollo/Vampire projects: the teams feed off the personal satisfaction and adulation and don't see it as a venture.

I would argue that this is a pretty widespread affliction that affects many efforts in the Amiga community, including A-EON and Cloanto.

Profitability allows for sustained development. This hobbyist/break even approach isn't good for anyone.

Unless sanding down and cutting room for a resistor on a chip socket mounted on the bottom the board somehow becomes an industry standard, manual labor will be required for _any_ A600 board :)

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@Signman

Quote:

Majsta and company should emulate Jens' operation, it's a business first and foremost.

if they did, there would be no "vampire".

@wawa

Quote:

wawa wrote: @Signman Quote: Majsta and company should emulate Jens' operation, it's a business first and foremost. if they did, there would be no "vampire".

Probably not. Heart over head got this product out the door, but they could change it up now that they have customers queuing round the block for these boards! There's no reason it can't be a business now. If that side of things doesn't interest them they could employ a business manager and keep their technical roles.

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@wawa

More like, if they did there'd be hardware, but the software wouldn't work right, or be updated (or there wouldn't be drivers for some applications).

Yes, we all know Jens is a GOD! But he talks a better game than he plays sometimes.
After all, he has claimed for years that he could build FPGA Amigas...and used the lack of licensable software as a reason not to.
Well, hey, that software IS available.

So where is that FPGA hardware Jens?
Oh yeah, the hobbyist got tired of waiting and built it for themselves!

@iggy

Jens is very ANTI FPGA CPU. He did everything he could in the forums to cause problems for the Apollo and Vampire guys to STOP the FPGA CPU. They did not listen to him and proved him wrong. He SWORE you could not get even close to 060 speeds with the FPGA they were using. There was also an argument regarding the way the IDE on the A600 speed was increased. Jens said that was impossible too.

I love most of Jens products and own a lot of them. Problem, Jens is a difficult person to deal with. I have meet him personally and was treated in a very harsh manner even though I was very nice and told him how much I appreciated his products. He does not care about us mere mortals as long as we buy his products. If he feels you are not on his level, you are not worthy of his time.

FPGA CPU changes the game for Jens. He can not claim an overclocked 020 is the best you can get with these old chips now. We have non Jens alternatives. If he ever were to develop/sell a FPGA CPU close or better than Apollo, he will change his tune. I am sure of it.

Last edited by omnicron10 on 22-Jul-2017 at 04:40 AM.

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A500/030 40mhz with A530, Indivision ECS, , KS 3.1, 2 Megs Chip, 8 Megs fast.
A600 Vampire II Black Edition, SumA600 USB KB Adapter
SAM440EP 667, Amiga OS 4.1u1
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@omnicron10

Quote:

omnicron10 wrote: @iggy Jens is very ANTI FPGA CPU.

No, he is ANTI Apollo Core, something he has in common with a large percentage of hardware and software developers for Amiga.

Quote:

He did everything he could in the forums to cause problems for the Apollo and Vampire guys to STOP the FPGA CPU.

The ultimate goal for Gunnar is that the Apollo Core will be the de-facto standard for _all_ 68k Amiga, so that anyone who makes Amiga acc. cards will have to license the CPU from him. Of course Jens is against this, so is anyone else who do Amiga hardware - especially with the Apollo Core being the oddball bastard of an architecture that it is. Even most software developers are against the Apollo Core, especially those who develop OS, be it AROS or Amiga OS. The are actually very few who developers at all who support the architectural changes that Gunnar is doing, _very_ few.

Quote:

They did not listen to him and proved him wrong. He SWORE you could not get even close to 060 speeds with the FPGA they were using.

Not without dropping compatibility, which is very true.

People who have 68060 have them because they want/need the speed and the features that 68060 offers. The Apollo Core only offers partly the speed and partly the features, the software that really flies on 68060 crawls on the Apollo Core. Then the Apollo Core offers more and more that is Apollo Core-only features, that noone ever asked for.

Quote:

There was also an argument regarding the way the IDE on the A600 speed was increased. Jens said that was impossible too.

But for some reason this has not been released yet, right? At least the speed on my A600's IDE is nothing to brag about, using Gold 2.5 core.

Quote:

I love most of Jens products and own a lot of them. Problem, Jens is a difficult person to deal with. I have meet him personally and was treated in a very harsh manner even though I was very nice and told him how much I appreciated his products. He does not care about us mere mortals as long as we buy his products. If he feels you are not on his level, you are not worthy of his time.

I have also met him a few times, even shared pizza and beer at some point, and I have also argued with him online on occasions. Still very much prefer him over Gunnar, heh.

Quote:

FPGA CPU changes the game for Jens. He can not claim an overclocked 020 is the best you can get with these old chips now.

Except, that is pretty much what the Apollo Core is - it is not compatible with 68030 (lacking MMU), 68040 nor 68060 (lacking FPU and MMU).

Quote:

We have non Jens alternatives.

We always had alternatives, that was never an issue.
And now the Vampire boards are not exactly the cheaper solution either, and the future Vampire cards will most likely be even more expensive, because that is the cost of manufacturing obscure low volume hardware.

Quote:

If he ever were to develop/sell a FPGA CPU close or better than Apollo, he will change his tune. I am sure of it.

He, and many like him, wants a much more compatible CPU core, not a CPU core that changes at the whim of one man. Not a CPU core that stands and falls on one man. Not a CPU core that can disappear any random day.

Last edited by kolla on 22-Jul-2017 at 02:15 PM.
Last edited by kolla on 22-Jul-2017 at 02:14 PM.

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@kolla

Quote:

No, he is ANTI Apollo Core...

Jens, Gunnar? Heh, both vitriolic and more than a bit self centered. Not surprising they don't get along.
As to the issue of compatibility and the non-standard features being implemented in the Apollo core(s), I am of two minds.
The current lack of FPU and MMU features is vexing.
But I rather like the idea of implementing new instructions for multimedia.
Also, while a little extreme, Gunnars plans for a much better, but incompatible fpu kind of interest me, as the performance of the 68K fpu could be further improved from the '40/'060 implementations.

But is Jens 'anti-fpga"?
Well he has talked a LOT about the idea, but his excuse for not moving forward on an fpga based project are transparently BS.

Basically such a design would obsolete several of his products by providing greater performance and would not allow him to charge based on relative performance.

Since Jens has never deigned to give us '40 or '60 based hardware, and has actually actively worked to prevent designs based on those cpus from being available, I can't help but think his primary problem with the Apollo project is related to the FACT that it presents a higher performing alternative to his products.
One that is likely to improve with time.

@iggy

Im not saying your post is the basis of my comment, but;

I dont see a problem with Jens OR Gunnar. Each provide good products from their point of future vision. Gunnar a more Next Gen 68k design, the other legacy support with new components.
There should be room for both, without trying to create conflictlines between them.
As for the legacy support for the Next Gen design, thats been discussed to death already, and a futile exersise.

I own hardware from both guys, and enjoy them.

The need to paint everything with a sinister brush has to be tireing for both guys/groups.

@iggy

Quote:

The current lack of FPU and MMU features is vexing. But I rather like the idea of implementing new instructions for multimedia.

Except there is no software that will use it, while just about all _existing_ multimedia software is struggling hard due to lack of FPU.

Quote:

Also, while a little extreme, Gunnars plans for a much better, but incompatible fpu kind of interest me, as the performance of the 68K fpu could be further improved from the '40/'060 implementations.

Yeah, something to implement and experiment with in private and with interested developers. Not something you announce as the ultimate solution long before you have even started to implement it.

Quote:

But is Jens 'anti-fpga"?

Not at all - he pretty much started the "FPGA for retro" thing a long time ago now.

Quote:

Well he has talked a LOT about the idea, but his excuse for not moving forward on an fpga based project are transparently BS.

I don't see it as BS, it's just a matter of what the market wants, and how he can make a sustainable business out of it. "Most users" just want to run games with WHDLoad - he has solutions for that, and they are not exactly expensive.

Quote:

Basically such a design would obsolete several of his products by providing greater performance and would not allow him to charge based on relative performance.

That is not how I see it. Performance is not an issue for the vast majority of users, compatibility is, compatibility with the existing software library. The killer feature of Vampire cards is that they may soon offer AGA and broaden the software library of OCS/ECS systems to include AGA software.

Quote:

Since Jens has never deigned to give us '40 or '60 based hardware, and has actually actively worked to prevent designs based on those cpus from being available

Well, I suppose you mean that he bought the rights to the Apollo board design just to make sure no new Apollo boards were made? Before that, he was quite open about Apollo owners being on their own when it came to support. As an ex-owner of an Apollo-1240 I can totally understand that, it was nothing but trouble. I still have Apollo-630, and that too has its issues with timing and stability.

Quote:

I can't help but think his primary problem with the Apollo project is related to the FACT that it presents a higher performing alternative to his products. One that is likely to improve with time.

Maybe he just doesn't like anything Apollo :)


Thought experiment - 5 years from now, assuming the Apollo Core project moves on the way Gunnar wants - what will be the Amiga situation?

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@Overflow

Quote:

Overflow wrote: There should be room for both, without trying to create conflictlines between them.

You would think, huh? I know what the Apollo Team think of Jens, there was no end to how evil he was, how greedy he was etc. - "the enemy". But not just Jens, just about any other acc. card effort for classic Amiga is ridiculed.

Yet here we are, the price of the current Vampire cards are up, availability is down, and they are sold on ebay at crazy prices etc. And yet you can still get cheap and reliable cards from iComp and others.

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@kolla

Prices are up, and its a shame that Kipper2k only went a little into the negative with his production. He should have lost even more money to subsidise our hobby.

The pricehike is fair considering the obvious need for automation in production.

@Overflow

Well over production is not a good thing.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 22-Jul-2017 at 05:52 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Meaning?

I understand the concept of overproduction, but what do you mean in this context?

@Overflow

Quote:

The pricehike is fair considering the obvious need for automation in production.

I agree that it is fair, and I also think the ACA cards come at fair price. A modern ACA 030 card for A1200 costs less than half of what my old Blizzard 1230 costed as new, consider RoHS, 5V vs 3.3V, availability of CPUs and inflation - that is one heck of an accomplishment.

But not in the eyes of Gunnar, of course.

Last edited by kolla on 22-Jul-2017 at 07:33 PM.

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@Overflow

I'm sure if scaling up production you might be forced to produce x number of units, how many Amiga computers are around in working order, that is being used, that has owner that is willing to pay for it. that has not moved on to WinUAE or x86, MacOS or something else.

How big chunk of market is left, how many units can make with out over production.
getting stuck with big batch of cards you can't sell, maybe the be forced to make lone to pay upfront production costs.

They might collect money using bounty or some thing, but upfront payment and Amiga people does not go hand in hand.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 22-Jul-2017 at 08:37 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 22-Jul-2017 at 08:08 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Upfront payment seems to have worked just fine with the Apollo Team. Yes, I had to wait for months to get my Vampire, but they have fullfilled the orders as they completed the cards.

Its not like its a secret that customers have to wait, so I dont see the problem.

As far as big batches that cant be sold; well, my impression is that they produce according to lists of actual pre-purchase orders, so I doubt there will be alot of leftovers.

@kolla

By now by we know you don't like Apollo-core/vampire, can you please stop hi-jacking every topic about it, it's getting childish at this point.

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@Mr-Z

Agreed.

@Kolla

Quote:

The ultimate goal for Gunnar is that the Apollo Core will be the de-facto standard for _all_ 68k Amiga, so that anyone who makes Amiga acc. cards will have to license the CPU from him. Of course Jens is against this, so is anyone else who do Amiga hardware - especially with the Apollo Core being the oddball bastard of an architecture that it is. Even most software developers are against the Apollo Core, especially those who develop OS, be it AROS or Amiga OS. The are actually very few who developers at all who support the architectural changes that Gunnar is doing, _very_ few.

This wins the award for 'Bat-sh!t crazy post of the day'.

@gregthecanuck

God forbid someone makes a new CPU design that implement NEW features that require NEW software optimizations to work to its full potential. Blasphemy!

Some people