Amiga VCF 2010 Show report


Thankfully Bletchley Park is just across the road from Bletchley Station,
so arriving via train was simple.

I arrived at Blechley Park at 1.30 pm via the main road entrance which had some cadets guiding people to the ticket stalls.
Once I paid £10 for the year long pass I made my way to another group of staff giving people the park guides,
I asked where the Amiga show is and they pointed to the a Marquee across the lake near me.

The Amiga show was in a large white Marquee that can easily accommodate 100 people.

On entering it was already quite crowded and getting close to see the X1000 was quite an effort, lots of people of all ages
surrounded the X1000 stand.
People were filming, taking photos all the time. It was quite a buzz a lot of people asking different questions amongst all the

stalls, around 100 in attendance.

Later BBC Press and other reporters interviewed a few people.

The A-EON stand had on display an AmigaOne X1000 computer and an X1000 in a see-through case, with Trevor,Hyperion, the motherboard

design team and the Friedens, all friendly and happy to answer questions at its side.

Trevor Dickinson, Director of A-EON made a short speech to the crowd.

The info I gathered are:

AmigaOne X1000 and Sam 460 computers are both running AmigaOS 4, 32 bit, single core.
AmigaOne X1000 uses a new BIOS that can hold 2 ROMS.
AmigaOne x1000 CPU will not be announced, but will be revealed.
AmigaOne x1000 is currently running OS4 in debug mode @ 1.8 GHZ.
AmigaOne x1000 can run without an XMOS chip.
AmigaOne x1000 CPU uses 256 bit interfaces and the CPU speed can be changed on the fly.

The motherboard developers created a custom board, 'Nemo' with specific instructions/features requested by OS4 developers.
The Nemo board was a challenging, fun project and the XMOS technology is the way other platforms will follow.

The aim for X1000 is to be available this fall. The price is 'North of £1500'.

In just 7 months OS4 developers had to adjust to the new CPU, integrate the new BIOS, write new drivers etc. for the X1000 computer

whilst at the same time Port AmigaOS 4 to the Sam460 system - incredible achievement in itself.

The new Sam 460 system was running AmigaOS 4 @ 1.0 GHz.
A SATA card for more SATA ports can be added.
The Silicon Motion gfx chip allow simple standard VGA graphics capability and video in video features.

I also talked to Simon and he quickly showed me some of the features of CodeBench. 12+ tabs were open and I was showed code

completion capability, drag'n'drop, indexed Amiga API help and the Hollywood plug in allows coding in Hollywood language. CodeBench

looks quite a professional development system for OS4 programmers.

Overall it has been a good few days out and the momentum and interest in Amiga is increasing, the X1000 is a costly system, however

from talking to everyone at the show and the expertise in the developers to give Amigans these new products - having a professional

and powerful Amiga system is worth every penny.

Hyperion and A-EON have a plan, new systems are appearing, new software is becoming available. The current products are not

optimized - yet. A lot of work has been done at high expense and to get the most out of this new hardware will not take too long -

at the end of the day we have new systems people ! That is what counts.

Can anyone imagine the power on this system ?

My respect and thanks go to all the event organisers, software and hardware developers, who have worked tirelessly to bring new Amiga systems to Amigans.


Download my videos of VCF 2010

Torrent: http://sharebee.com/cff66f49 430 MB

XVID 688x368 25 FPS, mpa 2ch 48khz 128 kb/s
(HiRES videos - please be patient for seed)

Last edited by asymetrix on 24-Jun-2010 at 01:50 PM.
Last edited by asymetrix on 23-Jun-2010 at 07:30 PM.

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@asymetrix

Thanks for the report.
I'll look at the video tomorrow.

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Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

@asymetrix

Cool report.

How do I download the video? All I'm getting is endless adds.

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@Akiko

Click on the megaupload link and enter the captcha and hit download wait 45 second and click regular download. Then fire up your Bit Torrent client and load the tracker file you downloaded.

@asymetrix

very good report.
Its sometimes for me hard to follow that speech because english is not my native language and there was of course some background-noise that make it hard to follow it right.

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I´m back in 2023 on Classic Amiga with my A1200/Blizzard1230IB@50Mhz, 32MB RAM, AmigaOS3.2 and ROMs, Indivision AGA MK3, Author of Amiga-Flipclock (OS4)

"North of £1500"?!?!?!?

Is this for real?

@asymetrix

Quote:

AmigaOne x1000 CPU uses 256 bit interfaces

Last edited by Seiya on 23-Jun-2010 at 10:16 PM.
Last edited by Seiya on 23-Jun-2010 at 10:15 PM.
Last edited by Seiya on 23-Jun-2010 at 09:59 PM.

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@fingus

It was very noisy at the show, with so many people attending and poor trevor almost lost his voice.

here is a transcript:

http://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&type=&topic_id=4031&forum=21

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@BrandonLee

yes, the X1000 is made here in UK and developed from scratch. Dunno if costs would be reduced if it was made in USA for example.

@Seiya

Why so glum ? 256 is pretty good.

Remember its a new system and alot of initial costs involved - it is a PRO system though.

The prototypes are very expensive, and now new revision 2 systems have to be delivered and tested at greater expence.

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@asymetrix

I understand the reasons behind the steep price. I just think it's impossible for the majority of users to invest on a machine (motherboard, in this case) for that price.
It's incredibly expensive. Minimum wage here is 480EUR, the X400 will cost almost 5x that.

I thought the A1 was expensive, too, but bought it and am very pleased with it, but in todays world, almost 2000EUR is out of reach to anyone that didn't win the lottery.
I was "trying" to convince my wife I needed the "roughly 1000EUR X1000". My chances were low, now they are non-existent.

Sorry to sound so depressed, but I really am.

Last edited by BrandonLee on 24-Jun-2010 at 04:47 PM.

@BrandonLee

I cannot afford one either and it is a really good new machine. But in time hopefully the cost will come down but only if those that can afford it do buy them.

I could not afford the original A1000, so I bought the A500. However, 9 months after I picked up a second hand A1000 and I still have it and love it more than any other possession.

Last edited by clusteruk on 24-Jun-2010 at 05:35 PM.

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@BrandonLee

I know. I know. Maybe a Sam 460 and someone would make an XMOS card is a possibility.

I am currently saving up, its gonna take a while maybe a student grant will help me.

Beta testing would be a cheaper option too. I think that is around £700 initially.

I also heard at the show that they are considering 'cost cutting' measures to reduce prices.

They really need to list all parts and price them and start looking for cheaper componants or make some lasting 'deals' that reduce prices, targeting the most expensive compnants all the way to visiting fabrication plants and discussing how to lower costs.

For example PCB fabrication in india + printing is real cheap in india.

If the price is right you can sell anything.

Last edited by asymetrix on 24-Jun-2010 at 05:49 PM.

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@asymetrix

The price not only saddens me personally, but I also think it will cripple any chances this new machine has.
Cost-cutting could help things, but if the components are unreliable, you'll be left with a (still) expensive board and little else.

Well, I don't know what can be done, if anything.
I could try and save for it, but at my current rate, I'd need a good 5 to 10 years to get near.

So, I'm officially out. ;((((((

Interesting that the CPU mhz can be set on the fly (800Mhz...1.8Ghz while the CPU is 2Ghz version).

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// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@asymetrix

Thanks for the pics and videos

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@asymetrix

Thanks for the report.

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