@OldFart

Quote:

OldFart wrote: @cdimauro Quote: If they like it and they want to buy, it's THEIR problem at the end, right? I would no go so far as to call it a problem, as that's a privilege solely belonging to the buyer of the wares. And thus we can only call it 'their matter'. That WE have a certain perception about it, whether or not biased, is fully up to US (and rest assured I have...). OldFart

These are the problems: https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=44959&forum=33&start=760&viewmode=flat&order=0#868721


@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: AmigaNOne, more expensive and less compatible.

Indeed. And which bounds it to an older GCC version -> no future for it.
Quote:

This would be an accurate sales pitch except the AmigaNOne branding was dropped for the A1222+. Were they too embarrassed to use the AmigaNOne branding or was it not compatible and standard enough?

No rights, clearly.

Now that even the AmigaOne sticker is dropped, how the fanboys could call it "Amiga"?


@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @NutsAboutAmiga Quote: NutsAboutAmiga wrote: Choice between A600GS vs A1222. Choice between Vampire vs A1222. in this two cases I think the A1222 wins, even if it’s not what it was supposed to be. The product that makes the least sense to me is the A600GS, it’s a waste of time, Vampire is more interesting to me. While we won’t know for sure until it has been released, I happen to think that the A600GS will be among the more compelling, if not the most compelling “Amiga� product in 2024 and into 2025. Apollo products are indeed very interesting, and will continue to be so. I have purchased my fair share of V2 and V4 based items, and will happily buy a Kraken for my A4000 when the Apollo Team is ready to make that happen. While capturing similar imaginations of Amigans, the Apollo products in contrast to the A600GS, is still a pricey proposition for many. And by many, I mean the tens and hundreds of thousands of active and semi-active Amigans who would take one look at the asking price for an A1222 and would never ever label it “low-end�. Some look at the A600GS and see it as a product that’s coming late into a perceived trend. I see the A600GS coming out at the right time: Simultaneously meeting Amigans (and their wallets) where they are NOW, and also skating toward where the proverbial puck WILL BE. Let’s face it. All AmigaKit has to do is get a half-decent HTML5/CSS3/JS browser on v46, and it’s game over.

I fully disagree: the A600GS is too late. The market was already eaten up by the A500 Mini, which made the big numbers.

The GS will only gain the attention of some passionate.

@ppcamiga1

AMiNIMiga is indistinguishable from Workbench 3.1 on a 68k machine. I don't care how it works on the A500 Mini's Arm CPU but it does! No PPC (or even vintage/real 68k) shrine here!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@cdimauro

Quote:

I fully disagree: the A600GS is too late. The market was already eaten up by the A500 Mini, which made the big numbers. The GS will only gain the attention of some passionate.

I agree! They even made a comment about sending Calvin Harris an A600GS before realising that RetroPassion had already sold him (via Sony) a refurbished A1200!!! It's all about timing!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

ppcamiga1 Quote:

quake is open source so it may be just recompiled if you don't have native os for risc-v with working amiga gui get lost

Quake 1 and 2 are old and lightweight by modern standards 1st gen true 3D fps games. Compiling working versions even on Linux is still not so simple and then the result may not be optimized. The TyrQuake compile video was shown because several other versions of Quake failed to work after compiling for the Linux RISC-V SBC. This is not unusual. Linux graphics card drivers for ARM often fail to work after compiling as could be seen with all but a couple of graphics cards failing to work in the RPi 4 CM and RPi 5 videos and then only after significant tweaking and development work. A big part of the problem is lack of standardization (different Linux flavors and options, different CPU ISAs and ABIs and different hardware configurations). One advantage the Amiga had was standard AmigaOS, standard CPU ISA and ABI and mostly standard hardware configurations much like consoles which also share this advantage. This allows to download and install already compiled and optimized versions of programs which greatly increases the chances of the program working, results in more optimized programs, saves time not having to compile programs and is much easier and more convenient for users.

http://eliyahu.org/tabor/games.html Quote:

Games not playable Quake I (SW) n/a No Fatal DSI during launch; see crashlog Quake I (fuh) OGL No Freezes on launch or dies with DSI; see crashlog Quake I (GL) OGL No Doesn't start; can't open OGL context Quake Darkplaces OGL Yes Launches, hits DSI, quits after loading Quake II OGL Yes Must set s_initsound to "0" in config.cfg; only gets about 4-5 fps Quake II HD OGL No Fatal DSI on launch; see crashlog Quake III OGL Yes Launches, game starts, too slow to play

Most compiled standard AmigaOS versions of Quake failed to work on the A1222. The two versions of Quake Eliyahu got working were unplayable likely because of horrible floating point performance. We are talking about light to moderate floating point use for Quake I and II which even a 1994 68060@50MHz with non-pipelined minimalist FPU can outperform. The source code for most of these Quake versions is available and Eliyahu likely could recompile them if he installed the old SPE supported version of GCC but he could waste days trying to get them working. There are likely bugs remaining in the standard PPC FPU emulation layer which is error prone and a kludge at best, especially for performance as can be seen by the horrible performance. Trevor had a chance to unload these CPUs during COVID but instead doubled down to obtain more expensive parts to bring these bastards to market. Like the Amiga 300 (later 600) that couldn't be cost reduced, the project should have been cancelled and the CPUs sold in the case of the A1222 (project may have been saveable with similar CPUs using e500mc cores with standard PPC FPUs if they could have been obtained at a reasonable cost). The development costs to produce the PPC FPU emulation which is still not mature and recompile all but the lightest floating point using executables for the A1222 has to be tremendous.

cdimauro Quote:

No rights, clearly. Now that even the AmigaOne sticker is dropped, how the fanboys could call it "Amiga"?

The A1222 still comes with AmigaOS 4. It is possible that A-Eon pulled the "AmigaOne" branding to reduce liability. If Hyperion loses the court cases, profits from use of the Amiga IP from when the lawsuits were brought could be owed to Amiga Corporation. Without AmigaOne branding and boing ball stickers on the hardware, A-Eon wouldn't owe anything for the A1222. Hyperion could owe Amiga Corporation for AmigaOS 4 but they would likely be out of business at that point. A-Eon would still be affected as Hyperion could not provide AmigaOS 4 for the A1222 in that case unless Amiga Corporation licensed it to them directly. Seeing how it looks like Trevor conspired with Ben, his fixer, to acquire (steal?) the Amiga IP, licensing costs may reflect this if Amiga IP was available to A-Eon at all.

cdimauro Quote:

I fully disagree: the A600GS is too late. The market was already eaten up by the A500 Mini, which made the big numbers. The GS will only gain the attention of some passionate.

Saturation of the market is always a concern but even Retro Games Ltd. follows up their Mini products with a Maxi into the same market. The Mini could be seen as wetting the appetite of fans, gaining attention and building momentum for the Maxi. The followup needs differentiating features and increased value is a big help. I'm not sure the A600GS is enough of a step up and is in some ways inferior, like invoking the nostalgia look and feel, but it is different. RGL also has an advantage in marketing and distribution channels. I would be surprised to see the A600GS on Amazon or Walmart websites. Development costs were likely significantly lower than for THEA500 Mini so AmigaKit may consider the A600GS a success with sales numbers closer to the V4SA than THEA500 Mini.

Last edited by matthey on 08-Mar-2024 at 05:28 PM.
Last edited by matthey on 08-Mar-2024 at 05:24 PM.
Last edited by matthey on 08-Mar-2024 at 05:21 PM.

@matthey

quake is open source so it may be just recompiled
wait patiently a1222 has been available only for two days

stop writing bs about risc-v
if you don't have native os for risc-v with working amiga gui
you have nothing

@matthey

Quote:

The source code for most of these Quake versions is available and Eliyahu likely could recompile them if he installed the old SPE supported version of GCC

The various 3D API's need to be compiled for SPE too, for the games to have the best chance of running at a reasonable frame rate. I know Dan compiled MiniGL for SPE years ago but I don't know the status for Warp3D Nova, OpenGL ES2 or GL4ES.

Quote:

Trevor had a chance to unload these CPUs during COVID but instead doubled down to obtain more expensive parts to bring these bastards to market.

Different decisions at various points would have led to better outcomes. The best option would have been to wait for the X5000 to be out the door, by that time the T1022 would have been available and the A1222 would have been delivered well before the great panic. The next best option would have been to get all the boards made when price was 300 (I don't recall the currency) per board and store them until there was a release candidate of OS4 for it.

Quote:

The A1222 still comes with AmigaOS 4. It is possible that A-Eon pulled the "AmigaOne" branding to reduce liability.

Amigakit haven't carried Hyperion or Cloanto products for years either. For whatever reason they appear to have made the conscious decision not to sell products from either company

Quote:

I would be surprised to see the A600GS on Amazon or Walmart websites. Development costs were likely significantly lower than for THEA500 Mini so AmigaKit may consider the A600GS a success with sales numbers closer to the V4SA than THEA500 Mini.

Anyone can sell on Amazon and it would probably make sense to make a shop on there for the A600GS. Amazon are quite predatory and use sellers for market research, if they see a product selling well from one of the sellers they will often go straight to the manufacturer to work out a deal that undercuts the original seller. It's unlikely that the A600GS will sell at the at the rate and quantities that will raise Sauron's eye but on the off chance that they do, it would be to Amigakit's advantage because they can't be bypassed because it's their own product.

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

quake is open source so it may be just recompiled wait patiently a1222 has been available only for two days

All the 3D APIs and wrappers need to be compiled and preferably optimised for SPE too. Hopefully that is a priority since it only has to be done once.

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: ppcamiga1 Quote: quake is open source so it may be just recompiled if you don't have native os for risc-v with working amiga gui get lost Quake 1 and 2 are old and lightweight by modern standards 1st gen true 3D fps games. Compiling working versions even on Linux is still not so simple and then the result may not be optimized. The TyrQuake compile video was shown because several other versions of Quake failed to work after compiling for the Linux RISC-V SBC. This is not unusual. Linux graphics card drivers for ARM often fail to work after compiling as could be seen with all but a couple of graphics cards failing to work in the RPi 4 CM and RPi 5 videos and then only after significant tweaking and development work. A big part of the problem is lack of standardization (different Linux flavors and options, different CPU ISAs and ABIs and different hardware configurations). One advantage the Amiga had was standard AmigaOS, standard CPU ISA and ABI and mostly standard hardware configurations much like consoles which also share this advantage. This allows to download and install already compiled and optimized versions of programs which greatly increases the chances of the program working, results in more optimized programs, saves time not having to compile programs and is much easier and more convenient for users. http://eliyahu.org/tabor/games.html Quote: Games not playable Quake I (SW) n/a No Fatal DSI during launch; see crashlog Quake I (fuh) OGL No Freezes on launch or dies with DSI; see crashlog Quake I (GL) OGL No Doesn't start; can't open OGL context Quake Darkplaces OGL Yes Launches, hits DSI, quits after loading Quake II OGL Yes Must set s_initsound to "0" in config.cfg; only gets about 4-5 fps Quake II HD OGL No Fatal DSI on launch; see crashlog Quake III OGL Yes Launches, game starts, too slow to play Most compiled standard AmigaOS versions of Quake failed to work on the A1222. The two versions of Quake Eliyahu got working were unplayable likely because of horrible floating point performance. We are talking about light to moderate floating point use for Quake I and II which even a 1994 68060@50MHz with non-pipelined minimalist FPU can outperform. The source code for most of these Quake versions is available and Eliyahu likely could recompile them if he installed the old SPE supported version of GCC but he could waste days trying to get them working. There are likely bugs remaining in the standard PPC FPU emulation layer which is error prone and a kludge at best, especially for performance as can be seen by the horrible performance. Trevor had a chance to unload these CPUs during COVID but instead doubled down to obtain more expensive parts to bring these bastards to market. Like the Amiga 300 (later 600) that couldn't be cost reduced, the project should have been cancelled and the CPUs sold in the case of the A1222 (project may have been saveable with similar CPUs using e500mc cores with standard PPC FPUs if they could have been obtained at a reasonable cost). The development costs to produce the PPC FPU emulation which is still not mature and recompile all but the lightest floating point using executables for the A1222 has to be tremendous.

The situation is dramatic: the project looks like being in an early beta phase. Or even alpha, if not all features are implemented.
Quote:

cdimauro Quote: No rights, clearly. Now that even the AmigaOne sticker is dropped, how the fanboys could call it "Amiga"? The A1222 still comes with AmigaOS 4. It is possible that A-Eon pulled the "AmigaOne" branding to reduce liability.

I don't think so. The AmigaOne brand was sub-licensed with the infamous 2009 agreement, so Hyperion has to right to sell it, until a court decides differently.

Maybe A-Eon didn't want to pay for it.
Quote:

cdimauro Quote: I fully disagree: the A600GS is too late. The market was already eaten up by the A500 Mini, which made the big numbers. The GS will only gain the attention of some passionate. Saturation of the market is always a concern but even Retro Games Ltd. follows up their Mini products with a Maxi into the same market. The Mini could be seen as wetting the appetite of fans, gaining attention and building momentum for the Maxi. The followup needs differentiating features and increased value is a big help. I'm not sure the A600GS is enough of a step up and is in some ways inferior, like invoking the nostalgia look and feel, but it is different. RGL also has an advantage in marketing and distribution channels. I would be surprised to see the A600GS on Amazon or Walmart websites. Development costs were likely significantly lower than for THEA500 Mini so AmigaKit may consider the A600GS a success with sales numbers closer to the V4SA than THEA500 Mini.

If 10k is a good number for the A600GS, then it might be reachable.

However this project, as well as the A500 Maxi, should bring some added values, as you stated, to make them compelling.

The recent news about the A600GS might give something valuable for the Amiga aficionados.

@fake_account

Two days? “Beta testers� and inner circle devs have had boards for months and months.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@agami

it passed just 2 days
wait patiently
regular users even don't get their Amiga 1222

@fake_account

Two days? “Beta testers� and inner circle devs have had boards for months and months.
That’s like 2 days, only 1000 times more.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

Looking at the new AmigaOne A1222 Part 1

https://www.epsilonsworld.com/2024/03/looking-at-new-amigaone-a1222-part-1.html

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
April 13-14 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show - http://www.portcommodore.com/class