Amiga / Cloanto

- Evercade get Kickstart Rom License for likely Amiga Game packs, like the Gremlin One they have
https://evercade.co.uk/exp/

-Antstream - to get more Amiga games.

-OpenSource the OS still seem to be one of the possible Aims.


A-EON / Acube

-Sam460le will be the final Sam460, out before the end of the year (hopefully)
https://shop.acube-systems.biz/5-sam-motherboards

-A1222, 1000 CPU have been secured, 200 initial board production hopefully early next year

-PPC notebook might still happen, Acube showed of a prototype.

-Enhancer Software/System54 will required AmigaOs4 to load up

-Enhancer Software 2.3 (update hopefully for the end of the year)

-After the above products, after AmigaOS rights are sorted, possible of moving the platform to another system, like ARM, this is the first time I heard that A-EON / Trevor is considering this with his personal ownership of the ExecSG. Very likly years away but intresting!
https://youtu.be/XHrm8XA59yw?t=19164

Amiga37

Over 2,000 attendance!
Amiga scene is alive and kicking!

Any other news I missed?

Last edited by amigang on 19-Oct-2022 at 12:05 PM.
Last edited by amigang on 18-Oct-2022 at 10:53 AM.

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@amigang

Amiga scene is alive and kicking! Very nice to hear this news, thanx for posting it.

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@amigang

Trevor says he don't want to see running OS4 on a pc.


Well at leat use off the shelv parts with a possible custom design.


So that you are not forced to abonden a design (X1000, PA) use an expensive cpu (X5000) or a crippled cpu (A1222) or slow cpu (Sam460ex) in 202x.

@bennymee

Well he did point out you can use it under emulation and sales of that done very well.

Not many people consider the A500 mini a emulation device but it is.

What if a new AmigaOS PPC emulator was written for Arm, that could still access the graphics card (like the Pistorm kind does it on classic Amiga) this could also be why most of the money and development has been on GPU side.
Plus if you dont think thats possible just look at this thread on PPC Emulation on ARM and it faster on a Iphone than Ryzen 7 cpu.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ppc-emulation-near-twice-as-fast-on-arm.2243003/

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@amigang

He also says that emulation has it's limitations.

As a user of OS4 on emulation, he is right. If I compare it to my old X1000 or Sam460 it is crippled.

Emulation could be fast on any cpu and it's faster with every new cpu generation, but looking at all the years Amiga Forever PowerPC emulation is available. It still can't reach the older hardware experience.
Somekind of new emulation will take a lot more years.

Why no native os on a new cpu ?
I would be surprised if the new A-Eon kernel with somekind of multicore support was not developed with a new cpu architecture in mind.

@bennymee

Quote:

I would be surprised if the new A-Eon kernel with somekind of multicore support was not developed with a new cpu architecture in mind

True, the only problem is the promise to get multicore support to the x1000 & x5000 products.

I personally don’t mind if that promise was broken for the future of the os4 platform.

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At the risk of being that guy, I don't think there is a future of the platform if it insists on sticking with PPC.

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@bennymee

Quote:

Well at leat use off the shelv parts with a possible custom design.

Using a PowerPC CPU/SOC isn't necessarily the main reason for the high prices of A-EON and Acube hardware. It's the low volumes their custom hardware is sold in.

Raptor have the same problem. Prices have doubled for the CPU now but when they first started selling Power 9 systems the individual price of the 4 core CPU was reasonably competetive with simarly specced CPUs from AMD and Intel. It was the low volume of boards produced that pushed the price into the thousands.

ARM and x86-64 CPUs might be cheaper to buy individually but if you still go down the custom hardware route with low volumes the boards will still end up costing many times more similar hardware from leading brands such as MSI or ASUS.

Quote:

I would be surprised if the new A-Eon kernel with somekind of multicore support was not developed with a new cpu architecture in mind.

Multicore support is being implemented in X-Kernel for X5000 with X1000 and A1222+ to follow.

It's a shame that the Raptor Blackbird isn't much cheaper than it is since it would be the ideal path for Amga OS in a number of ways.

@Karlos

It's obvious and clear since quite some years. ppc is a dead end.

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@amigang

Far out!
This is really promising!
I would hate to jinx this but I may be a little excited about this news, especially that last bit with Trevor. (I went and watched that)
Over 2k attended too!!
I really hope this continues.

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It's not the question that's the problem, it's the problem that's the question.

@Zylesea

True but somebody has to officially signal the switch.
And that entity has to have a concrete replacement to offer .
A Kernel booting on the new hardware choice and a clear path for running legacy application ?

Quote:

Zylesea wrote: @Karlos It's obvious and clear since quite some years. ppc is a dead end.

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Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

@Zylesea

Quote:

It's obvious and clear since quite some years. ppc is a dead end.

When you cater in the costs of producing hardware for it, it is. Totally agree.

As Trevor mentioned, the possibility of ARM and using already existing options and building off that is a way to lower costing.
No reason why lots of Amiga specific mainboards and plugins etc couldn't be explored and nothing stopping product being used in multiple areas outside of Amiga for increased sales.
Having to design from scratch on PPC is always going to be really expensive and the CPUs themselves aren't exactly cheap!! he mentioned $500 PPC CPUs each! WTF?

I think this possible change is really exciting!

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It's not the question that's the problem, it's the problem that's the question.

SHADES Quote:

Over 2k attended too!! I really hope this continues.

The retro Amiga team scores and wins!
https://youtu.be/iqeH_Yxl2Qk?t=4983

How does this translate to PPC hardware pretending to be an Amiga but failing for over a decade while becoming less competitive every day? How many times did Trevor mention subsidizing PPC hardware?

In other retro Amiga news, Amiga Corporation and Cloanto have signed over 20 Amiga licenses. There is real demand for retro 68k Amiga hardware despite only having emulation, FPGA hardware and original hardware. Is the retro Amiga or Trevor the 800 pound Gorilla in the room?

Last edited by matthey on 18-Oct-2022 at 10:35 PM.

@Zylesea

It is most likely true, but we are still seeing turbo card such as TF1260, Warp1260 being sold. Dead in this case is not a best way to describe it.

@matthey

Thanks Matthey, i'll go have a look.

Quote:

How does this translate to PPC hardware pretending to be an Amiga but failing for over a decade while becoming less competitive every day? How many times did Trevor mention subsidizing PPC hardware?

Yeah, that's bad buisness. That's not going to go anywhere.

Quote:

In other retro Amiga news, Amiga Corporation and Cloanto have signed over 20 Amiga licenses. There is real demand for retro 68k Amiga hardware despite only having emulation, FPGA hardware and original hardware. Is the retro Amiga or Trevor the 800 pound Gorilla in the room?

Restrictions as to what's achieveable due to license battles explained why that's the only reason.
Although, it does point to a profitiable market.
If they can get a real computer out that's not so insanly expensive to build, (why PPC is failing) it's going to sell. There is little doubt on that now.

_________________
It's not the question that's the problem, it's the problem that's the question.

@bennymee

Quote:

Trevor says he don't want to see running OS4 on a pc.

He knows it sounds silly.

Technically there are problems they would need to solve getting it to run. They'd have to port it to little endian first before any major move like that. But my hybrid idea would be a custom compiler that compiled all code using only x86 big endian instructions.

Quote:

Well at leat use off the shelv parts with a possible custom design.

That what they did with PowerPC.

@Rob

Quote:

ARM and x86-64 CPUs might be cheaper to buy individually but if you still go down the custom hardware route with low volumes the boards will still end up costing many times more similar hardware from leading brands such as MSI or ASUS.

The A500 Mini went down the custom route and it even comes in a case!

Quote:

Multicore support is being implemented in X-Kernel for X5000 with X1000 and A1222+ to follow.

Yeah, they were doing that on he X1000 about ten years ago, no X-Kernel yet.

Quote:

It's a shame that the Raptor Blackbird isn't much cheaper than it is since it would be the ideal path for Amga OS in a number of ways.

The chance has gone to get a cheaper batch and work on it. But they can still support them by using them as a hardware vendor. The firmware is open source AFAIK so they can customise it without anyone hogging it and stifling updates. Though that nay work against it since they like exclusive firmware. This would be great for a high end machine. And it's how things started out. The MAI board was server board. This is also a server board but in full working order. No need doing 10 ten runs and wasting money fixing them then a trial of 100. I see this as a win win. Compare this with what an X5000/5040 would cost and I know what's left in the dust. Sure, investigate another CPU arch for low end, but POWER is a direct relation of PowerPC and the obvious target of where to go next.

@Rob

Quote:

Rob wrote: @bennymee Quote: I would be surprised if the new A-Eon kernel with somekind of multicore support was not developed with a new cpu architecture in mind. Multicore support is being implemented in X-Kernel for X5000 with X1000 and A1222+ to follow.

"Is being"? Still? After more than a decade?

What they have presented then? Slides, as usual?

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @bennymee Quote: Well at leat use off the shelv parts with a possible custom design. That what they did with PowerPC.

Something more like this perhaps https://en.t-firefly.com/product/industry/itx3568jq

Though personally I'll be ordering this little gem https://en.t-firefly.com/product/industry/itx3588j

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@Rob

It is not only the volume, a lot of DIY projects for the classic sell for a lot less. E.g. the '060 boards, without cpu, from 250. They are DIY with other demands, but the cpu connector for the 4000 is not cheap. And the new Sam boards are using standard component produced in thousands.

You are right, looking at more custom ITX boards for the pc, they are 300+.

Custom does not mean a radical new design, because the layout of the X5000 or Sam is similar to a PC board.
If you take a look at good cheap x64 hardware: 68e motherboard + Intel Pentium Gold G6405 Boxed 64e blows away an X5000, running circles around any PowerPC, the gap is very large. There are no new PowerPC's, they are EOL, meaning price will be higher and higher. There is a room for a custom design - but standard components, at least which are available.

Last edited by bennymee on 19-Oct-2022 at 06:53 AM.
Last edited by bennymee on 19-Oct-2022 at 06:49 AM.