@Interesting

I would change the spec below in 2 places...

drop the PS/2 ports for Keyboard/mouse... USB gear for the same is equally priced where I am...
change the onboard graphics for a Radeon chip... and have it a seperate socketed memory block... choice of upgradable memory by graphics module installed,
[chipram for PowerPC graphics?]

Id also look for at the Micro-ATX spec than the Mini-ITX spec for a "Tower" version
but keep the "Mini-ITX" version and work on some form of decent casework for space

Quote:

Interesting wrote: @RC Quote: I can feel the pull of the Darkside (okay it's just the Grayside, PC's are the true Darkside). But damn it's a heck of a temptation to have all that power in a box about the size of an old amiga external floppy drive. Ok, I'm enjoying this Forum...let me tempt you with this: Mini-Amiga2 (Hypothetical) Cube case w/Amiga logo 1.25GHz PowerPC G4, Memory - 256 MB Standard built in 40GB Hard drive AmigaOS4 Nvidia GPU with 64MB DDR non-shared memory. BIOS - Uboot socketed, w/OS4 enabling code North Bridge- Articia "S" or Artica "P" South Bridge-VIA 82C686B (replaced with a superior chipset) Ports:VGA output DVI output; S-Video, composite output (1) JoyStick/Midi port (1) PS2 kb and (1) PS2 mouse ports (4) USB 2.0 (2 front, 2 rear) (1) FireWire (1) 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet (1) 56K v.92 fax modem (1) SD or memory stick card port (front) (1) Headphones front retail price (production start) $600.00

@Interesting

Hmm, There are interesting things being said.. but it seems Everyone is missing th Actual point of the Amiga, Commercial, and Industrial boards 8)

How about ten million Amiga Boards.. sat inside your TV box, with sat, cable, digital recieve, HD and Optical and Card record and handling, broadband bittorrent information, using Learning software, throught keypress, microphone, camrea, preferences.

The best computer, is one thast doesnt exist. 8)

Make the AmiVerse your freind.

RodTerl

By the way.. Scale of sales effect.. for 100 thousand units, you can buy 7.1 channel, MPEG2/3/4 24 bit 193khz audio chips.. for $1.45 How much does a Paula cost?

_________________
The older and more respected a scientist is, the longer it takes to prove him wrong.

It would be nice if this discussion included some reason why Amiga makes a good choice.

Instead we get some talk on the margins...well buying an Amiga will help it be a good choice someday. Ermmm, the best I can say to that is maybe, or maybe it will prove you can get sales without being superior, in which case...why bother being superior.

Or, we can say the mac mini is no more a threat than your average pc. Again, maybe. On the other hand, if the Mac market is, an 'alternative market', along with linux, than the $199 wal-mart linux boxes, and the $499 mac mini's are crowding out the amiga as an 'non-windows' choice.

of course, you can say, Amiga isn't about being the non-windows choice...its about being an Amiga. Except then it would be oh-so helpful, if the Amiga was superior in some way.

Less bloated software....that's the old mantra, but it doesn't ring true. Maybe command line DOS programs are bloated either...but amiga stuff is getting long in the tooth.

hey don't get me wrong, why am I here typing a message? I want to see the old dog get up and dance, but we need to have some reason why os 4.X is going to have some competitive advantage, that way we can exagerrate the importance of it, and not be too embarassed...and they need to actually do it, have that advantage, in alpha form at least...

Apple thinks integrated search is a competitive advantage, and before you can turn around, they have integrated search.....I mean it doesn't have to be a world beater...just pick something, anything...

sorry, went off on a rant.

Hi Interesting,


We don't seem to generally support nVidia, as far as I can tell.

Also, I strongly believe in the Compact Flash, form factor of solid state static ram storage.


ALL devices should have TWO slots on the front, or under, or inside them, that support CF and CF type II storage modules.

They are the floppy, casette, 8 tracks, and punch cards of the future, to me.

Instead we have goof ball sony pushing memory sticks, those stupid USB keys running around, the too small to deal with SD cards, and the XD, overpriced, rarely used newcomers, prancing around, too.

I rather like the zip 750 Megs too. Too bad they didn't catch on. But, they should have had a write protect tab. Actually, so should CF cards. Upon insertion, instant contamination could follow! Scary!


Also, on the motherboard, a 4 or 16 Meg flash rom, with a physical write protect jumper, or switch, and optional, external switch. This to allow custom, and near "instant on" AOS4+.x variants. AND a compact flash card slot inside on the motherboard.


Well, that's all for today.



AmigaOne! AOS4.0! Happy computing!

@Rogue
Quote:

Quote: 2. Whisper quiet operation Can also be achieved using a water cooler or passive cooling on Wintel.

Yes, but so far I haven't seen passive cooling in reasonable sizes unless you REALLY compromise with cpu power. And as for water cooling, well, we're aiming for a 300-500$ PC right?

Quote:

Quote: 3. Comes with a full-blown OS complete with developer tools Most Wintel PC's have WinXP installed as well.

What about the developer tools? Built-in mail server, web server, OpenTalk technology. Windows is just so far behind these days technology-wise.

Quote:

Quote: 4. Includes everything you need in the home. An office suite (aging, but it works well enough), GarageBand 2, iPhoto, iMovie (with high definition support!), iDVD, dvd player, decent browser and basically everything else you need to get started. That's the best point so far, although you can download Windows Media Producer for Windows and OpenOffice.org.

Yes, and OO.o is certainly a very capable office suite and indeed I use NeoOffice on OS X (based on OO.o). But let's be honest: nothing *free* on Windows comes anywhere near iMovie and iDVD. These apps are soo good you could make a movie and win awards with them. In fact some guy did recently. The same goes for the rest of the apps I just mentioned though you may be lucky to have some fairly usable photo app bundled with your machine. Just not a 300$ one.

Quote:

Quote: 5. Has in/out for pretty much everything you need including dv-cams That holds true for almost all general retail PC as well.

Are you sure? I just had a quick look around and precious few seemed to come with firewire out of the box.


Quote:

Quote: 6. Hooks up to a telly easily and with great quality (yes, a PC can do that with a nice gfx card too, but I'd rather not have to fight to get it) Huh? There is no problem attaching say a Radeon to a TV...

Not attaching it, no. Getting it to output a GREAT quality picture can be quite a struggle on the other hand... It's possible of course, but so far I haven't seen anything but Apple hardware (in recent times) just work out of the box. I mean, plug it in and you have a great picture - it even comes with the proper resolution out of the box.

Quote:

I honestly don't see this as more of a danger than the usual run-of-the-mill PC. Especially since with the PC you get the same effect like in old Amiga days - your next-door neighbour likely has one too.

I hardly know anyone who uses PCs any more. It's all Apple around here (except from the Amiga gang obviously). And as to the same effect... no. You don't get that. You get to sit around, messing around with drivers, updating your system for days on end and by the time the system runs well enough the next Big Game is out and your PC is out of date. OK ok.. maybe a slight exaggeration

But mark my words: this is going to be big. Very big. People said the iPod would fail miserably. It did the opposite. People said the iPod Mini would fail miserably. It did the opposite. People say the same thing now about the iPod Shuffle and Mac Mini - they will also be wrong this time. If people are willing to spend 400+ Euro on an iPod, they'll definitely be likely to spend 520 Euro on a Mac Mini.

Last edited by Trezzer on 12-Jan-2005 at 09:10 PM.
Last edited by Trezzer on 12-Jan-2005 at 09:08 PM.

@RobertDupuy

Quote:

It would be nice if this discussion included some reason why Amiga makes a good choice.

Here's one advantage AmigaOS has over other desktop operating systems: simplicity.

I don't mean ease-of-use, because AmigaOS 4.0 can't match OS X for ease-of-use (in fact, in terms of "intuitiveness", OS4.0 currently leaves a lot to be desired). I mean that the OS as a whole is understandable because it is simple. For example: it's quite possible for an average user to know exactly what each component of AmigaOS is and what is does. Can you say the same for Windows or OS X? I think not.

Cheers,
Rich

@evilrich

Quote:

evilrich wrote: @RobertDupuy Quote: It would be nice if this discussion included some reason why Amiga makes a good choice. Here's one advantage AmigaOS has over other desktop operating systems: simplicity.

Here's another one: raw speed. That's one of my favourite things about it.

@Rogue

Quote:

2. Whisper quiet operation Can also be achieved using a water cooler or passive cooling on Wintel.

We are trying to achieve a $500-$600 system here. There's no way to do that with WaterCooling.

What I would recommend is Transmeta just showed a 2Ghz processor. They claim it's as fast as a PIV @ 3Ghz, however only uses 25Watts of power.


Apple Mac Mini -- While it's not much the keyboard and mouse isn't included in the computer. It's an optional upgrade. For a system you have to ask what?!

32MB of RAM? -- Guess they don't expect anyone to run any modern 3D games.

@BrianK

All I can say is that if it aint Olivia Newton John compatible then I don't want it. I know for a fact that my amiga is Olivia Newton John compatible.

_________________
-- --
aka Tony Rocks

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @Hammer Quote: Hammer wrote: @BukkY One may have to beef up the interconnects between the nodes. Probably not. Many clusters work just fine on 100Mb/s ethernet. If you need more speed there's a Firewire connector. I don't do Macs much but I've been able to get a Firewire LAN configured on PCs. So TCP/IP over IEEE1394 isn't out of the question. I think Apple's Rendezvous might work over Firewire for networking..

As long as the clustering work didn?t saturate the interconnecting links then it would be fine. Atm, clustering applications in desktop market is pretty useless.

Last edited by Hammer on 12-Jan-2005 at 09:29 PM.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

This new minimac doesn`t exactly have the "smell of tomorrow" of it not with those specs.

Not that A1 has it either, but im not afraid of this little fancy lunchbox

_________________
If you need music for your productions, or graphics for your creations, feel free to contact me.
also check out my music at http://www.contrazt.no/records.html

@Trezzer

Quote:

Yes, but so far I haven't seen passive cooling in reasonable sizes unless you REALLY compromise with cpu power. And as for water cooling, well, we're aiming for a 300-500$ PC right?

Well, clock down a latest stepping X86 chip down to 1.2Ghz.

Quote:

What about the developer tools?

Depends on the quality of developer tools and target market.

Quote:

Built-in mail server

WinXP Pro has built-in SMTP server (half a email server).

Quote:

, web server,

WinXP Pro has built-in IIS 5.1.

Quote:

OpenTalk technology.

Universal PnP.

Quote:

Windows is just so far behind these days technology-wise.

Windows still have the quality of drivers i.e. especially VPU drivers.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

@rinaldo00

Quote:

Do you people not know that iTunes has a Windows vers? I have tested in on my WinXP machine. (I never use it though) I'm sure they would port it to any platyform that would give more iTune sales and Ipod sales

Of course we do but if you buy from the Apple iTunes store the songs are only playable on an iPod. Whereas other stores that use other formats have a variety of players which play their DRM content. Since Apple has refused to license their DRM to any other company you can't use any other player then the iPod.

Reread my point it wasn't about Win vs Mac is was iPod vs any other player.

@Hammer

Quote:

Well, clock down a latest stepping X86 chip down to 1.2Ghz.

Last time I had my Powerbook (867 MHz)running next to a 1,5GHz P4 it ran circles around the P4. Probably because the PC had to run all sorts of antivirus software, extra firewalls and so on. I'd say you'd need app. a 2 GHz machine before you have something equivalent to the G4s on offer here.

Quote:

Depends on the quality of developer tools and target market.

They should be first class like X-Code.

Fair enough with the smtp and web server (even though I wouldn't dare enabling either of them on a Windows installation).

Quote:

Universal PnP.

Excuse me? First of all Windows PnP isn't exactly anywhere near the level of OS X, secondly I'm talking about OpenTalk aka ZeroConf (formerly known as RendezVous). I did a quick search and didn't find any indications that UPnP is something similar. If I misunderstood what UPnP is about, please do correct me.

@BrianK

Quote:

Since Apple has refused to license their DRM to any other company you can't use any other player then the iPod.

Motorola is coming out with a phone that supports Fairplay DRM.

That said I'd really rather just buy an iPod and live with Fairplay DRM (or just buy CDs and rip them to MP3 and put them on there) than buy any of the second rate players out there, that supports the ridiculously restrictive WM DRM.

Sure, I'd rather see no DRM and have the choice between all players, but since it seems necessary to have some sort of DRM I'd go with the Fairplay restrictions rather than the ridiculous certificate system.

Apple just has the advantage that it has the best player, the best store and the best DRM system. I can understand why they don't want to share with everyone else. And so far it's far from a monopoly.

Last edited by Trezzer on 12-Jan-2005 at 09:57 PM.

@Desolator
Quote:

Desolator wrote: one should never order more memory at applestore when purchasing a mac. It can (atleast up until now) always be bought from a local store much cheaper and inserted by the user himself at home without much hassle.

That's true for any computer retailer. They don't make much on the intital item, but they make it up on overpriced accessories. Like RAM, or surge suppressors.

But since there is only one DIMM slot by the look of it, it may be wise to upgrade it at the factory, unless you have something you can slap the original ram stick into...

With 512MB, it should run nice.

Apple Canada is offering them for $629, if you double the ram ($97) and add the DVD burner ($130), it can be yours for $859, delivered, less taxes.

Given the recent history of the US dollar, the price can only get better...

@DrBombcrater
Quote:

DrBombcrater wrote: @EntilZha People who look at prices will buy an Apple or Amiga if you make it cheap and keep the specs reasonable. Apple have just acheived that. I don't think the Mac Mini will impact sales of A1s at the moment, because only determined AmigaOS fans are buying them, but if we don't get cheaper hardware in the future potential customers who are not quite as hard-core on AOS may not be convinced. Compare the Mac Mini and the uA1 -- the Mac is half the price and probably about twice as powerful. Is OS4 really that much better than OS X that it justifies such a huge value gap? For me, and for most people reading this, the answer is yes. For anyone outside the few-thousand strong group of AmigaOS die-hards, probably not. And once there are millions of these things in circulation, you know someone is going to try and get OS4 running on it. MOL was possible, so why not AOM? Running such a setup would be illegal, but so is running OS X via MOL and that never stopped anyone for doing it...

This device isn't competition for the AmigaOne, because the AmigaOne isn't even in the running.

This device is targetted at the upper low end of the market. Let Dell have the trailer parks, this machine isn't for that market.

This is for people that are looking to upgrade, don't want to spend a lot, and have the needed extras already. Maybe they have an iPod and are impressed by it.

So they go to an Apple dealer and look at one. Maybe buy one. Maybe even decide to get an iMac instead. As long as it gets them in the door at the dealer.

@Trezzer

Quote:

But let's be honest: nothing *free* on Windows comes anywhere near iMovie and iDVD.

Depends on the target market e.g. a HP box usually comes with MS Money 2004 OEM. Microsoft?s main market is in SOHO with business financial background.

For near orange Vs orange comparisons i.e. PC vendor Vs PC Vendor
An example; HP usually bundles the following

Microsoft(R) Works 7.0/Money 2004/MSN Encarta Plus
Apple iTunes
RealPlayer
InterVideo® WinDVD® 5 player (in models with DVD drive)
Intervideo® WinDVD Creator (in models with DVD writers)
RecordNow (in models with CD writers or DVD writers)
Intuit Quicken New User's Edition 2005
Adobe® Photoshop Album STE
Adobe® Photoshop Album Starter Edition
Compaq Organize
Microsoft® Software Jukebox
WildTangent GameChannel

Quote:

These apps are soo good you could make a movie and win awards with them

Pretty useless in Microsoft's main target market i.e. most has day jobs which has nothing to do with wining the next movie awards, but most has something to do with financial management.

Quote:

Are you sure? I just had a quick look around and precious few seemed to come with firewire out of the box.

HP's value end AMD based SR1000Z series has two Firewire (1 front and 1 back).

Quote:

I hardly know anyone who uses PCs any more

Market data suggest otherwise.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

@RedMelons
Quote:

RedMelons wrote: How does such a small case manage to house a 'fast G4 processor' without the huge cooling systems which some people seem to be fitting to their AmigaOnes?

Proper design.

Apple designed the case for their own motherboard design. They just are not slapping a board they OEM'ed in Taiwan into a case OEM'ed in China.

Therefore they got to control part placement, volume, and airflow management.

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @rinaldo00 Quote: Do you people not know that iTunes has a Windows vers? I have tested in on my WinXP machine. (I never use it though) I'm sure they would port it to any platyform that would give more iTune sales and Ipod sales Of course we do but if you buy from the Apple iTunes store the songs are only playable on an iPod. Whereas other stores that use other formats have a variety of players which play their DRM content. Since Apple has refused to license their DRM to any other company you can't use any other player then the iPod. Reread my point it wasn't about Win vs Mac is was iPod vs any other player.

This is EXACTLY what you said
"
At this time neither the Amiga nor any other platform has the locked-in monopolistic iTunes deployment from Apple."

I say that Itunes is not locked into Apple, other platforms allow use of ITunes. No where was the Ipod mentioned. You could just as easily use Itunes on a PC and buy an Ipod. That has nothing to do with the MiniMac