I watched more of the videos from the link provided by #6. Gaming was supposed to be a highlight of the show which should be good for retro but it looked like there were only 30-40 people there even when the most famous person at the show spoke, Dave Hynie. Even worse, maybe 1/4 of show attendees wore tags as speakers or people involved with the show. It looked like 95% of people were middle aged or older with few children but a few wives dragged along. My local Amiga user groups sometimes had more people than this while Cali user groups were often much larger, I expect consisted of hundreds of Amiga users in larger cities. Ex-Amiga users didn't all die, the Amiga died. The turnout is a proxy of Trevor's failure. Trevor is a dinosaur in fantasy Amiga Neverland. Amiga users in the US know Trevor has turned the Amiga into a joke. Trevor tripled down on the A1222 catastrophe by announcing more micro-production of an embarrassing product that failed to fulfill the purpose it was designed for which was affordable Amigas much like the Amiga 600 catastrophic mistake. The reduced compatibility from the castrated PPC CPU already reduced the reduced 68k Amiga compatibility of PPC Amiga1 hardware that made it a failure. Trevor failed to answer a question of what was in the pipeline. The A1222 and lower price A600GS were touted as successes that are selling when the A1222 is an abject failure with any partial success of the A600GS coming from a sliver of a large divided retro 68k Amiga market. A progress report on SMP was that progress was still being made after more than a decade which seems disingenuous. Trevor announced he owns stock in Amiga Kit at the show so he owns stock in A-Eon, Amiga Kit and Hyperion now. I believe Matthew owns stock in Amiga Kit and A-Eon. Ben may own stock in multiple Hyperion entities and shell businesses. Conflicts of interest and corruption? One big happy family?

There is no Amiga hardware with anywhere near competitive value. Emulation is EOL and will never proliferate the Amiga user base. THEA500 Mini users play a few games and stick the toy in a drawer. The sales numbers didn't do jack for AmiWest attendance. The 68k Amiga was about elegant hardware but there is nothing to be proud of with emulation inefficient in pretty much every way possible. FPGA hardware is more authentic and accurate but performance is lower than emulation. Amiga1 hardware is just PC hardware using a PPC CPU that seems more outdated than the much loved 68k CPU required to provide the compatibility Amiga fans want. Trevor can continue to ignore the retro 68k Amiga market until it goes away. Part of the work to develop a 68k Amiga already exists and was highlighted by new products mentioned in the show. Jens Schonfeld announced a new version of the ECS Indivision which he mentions reimplements Denise in a FPGA based on the Clone-A project. A new 68040/68060 accelerator for the Amiga 1200 was announced which offers a 68000 core in a small FPGA for compatibility without compromises. There was a question about the Vamp/AC core fitting in the FPGA which is another more complete reimplementation of a 68k CPU and Amiga chipset in FPGA with enhancements. There are at least 2 other AGA compatible chipsets. There are probably a half a dozen 68000 compatible cores, a few 68020 compatible cores and the original 68k cores including the semi-modern and modular 68060 core. SiFive licenses more modern and modular IP blocks written in Verilog and using standard AMBA busses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Microcontroller_Bus_Architecture Quote:

The Arm Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA) is an open-standard, on-chip interconnect specification for the connection and management of functional blocks in system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs. It facilitates development of multi-processor designs with large numbers of controllers and components with a bus architecture. Since its inception, the scope of AMBA has, despite its name, gone far beyond microcontroller devices. Today, AMBA is widely used on a range of ASIC and SoC parts including applications processors used in modern portable mobile devices like smartphones. AMBA is a registered trademark of Arm Ltd.

ColdFire cores are written in Verilog and use AMBA so the 68040 and 68060 likely do too (the 68000-68030 development was crude and the chips were hand laid out like the original Amiga chipset but may have been updated to Verilog). Anything but bring the technology forward, combine it and create an ASIC 68k SoC to make the Amiga affordable, a competitive value and relevant again. The original low end 68k Amiga was a hit with younger people because it was affordable and offered good value. The Amiga 500 was the the best seller because of the value and CBM lost the Amiga market because they let the value of newer Amiga hardware slip. The Amiga 1200 had less performance and value compared to the competition but it was much more competitive than any Amiga hardware on the market today.

Last edited by matthey on 28-Oct-2024 at 12:50 AM.

@matthey

stop trolling and show us 68k soc with ocs compatibility and 3D on at least R200 level

Quick question.
Enhancer software V54 for Amingaone X5000 announced in 2021, release 2022, it fell into a black hole
Seriously, has it been cancelled?

@matthey

Quote:

THEA500 Mini users play a few games and stick the toy in a drawer.Â

An absolute lie!

I completed a programming project recently using the Mini in addition to some DPaint animating and some upcoming Worms DC 1.5 map creation!

Ditto the A600GS with Amistore and focus on productivity!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
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@Mimifan

official not

parts of enhancer got it into the new A600GS system

@BigD

Quote:

I completed a programming project recently using the Mini in addition to some DPaint animating and some upcoming Worms DC 1.5 map creation!

In fairness, you'd have done that work if the Mini didn't exist.
Matthey is probably right about the majority of Mini customers who never hung onto their hardware after 1994 and only ever knew the Amiga as a gaming system.

@Rob

I wouldn't have done it in my lounge and I probably wouldn't have enthused my children with the projects that would otherwise be conducted in a work office/untidy man cave! If you don't want to have a new generation of Amigans or ex-Amigas who want to get back into DPaint and dabble with AROS, Blitz Basic and now The Scorpion Engine, keep under selling THEA500 Mini and it will be a self fulfilling prophesy!

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

@OlafS25

Quote:

Retro is in and there is a lot of activity now there If you look at Amiga 38 there is a lot of activity now, but most 68k related. You have Amiga as a retro platform what is growing, and you have amiga as a professional platform that is dead already for a long time. There my biggest hope would be the merge with linux (axruntime) but until that is real I have enough to do with Aros 68k

I don’t think anyone outside of Amiga / ex Amiga users cares about that, if want this thing to not end with we die of old age, you need new people interested in continuing it. and I do not see that happening unless AmigaOS has to becomes useful. And it’s not really useful, is it? Even Linux struggles with it can establish itself as real contained against windows, because it can't be used as a desktop system for real office use.

At least with Linux, you can argue its useful for server side of things, you can argue its more secure than windows, has less virus, and so on... There are some real good arguments for Linux, but on the office side of things it kind of sucks. Wine is not that good.

Now we are talking about getting Libre Office ported, let’s be truthful it can’t hold candle to Microsoft Office.

In any case no OS needs to be great at everything, it needs to be argument better at somethings, but AmigaOS does not have that, anymore, we use it because we like it, and that’s not good argument.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 28-Oct-2024 at 08:27 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 28-Oct-2024 at 08:26 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Linux works great a s a server and desktop operating system today. Microsoft Office has been an available for Linux for a longtime, where have you been? In fact many professional companies like Banks and stock exchanges prefer Linux since it’s more reliable, robust and secure.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 28-Oct-2024 at 11:17 PM.
Last edited by DiscreetFX on 28-Oct-2024 at 09:34 PM.

_________________
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@NutsAboutAmiga

AmigaOS is like Launchpad on the Mac; a way to launch Amiga games and productivity software. That's it! It's not the killer app in and of itself that Amigans make it out to be. It annoys me a lot of the time and while it is satisfying getting drawers and icons the way I want it's ultimately a complete waste of time!

Amiga software and the hardware is what made the Amiga special. AmigaOS is logical enough that we can understand how it works but it's like understanding a simple hovermower when you need a Humvee in this day and age!

Workbench is a fun basic window based spatial paradigm GUI that most people replace with DOpus! It's part of who we are because we grew up with it but it's not the best thing about the Amiga!

Last edited by BigD on 28-Oct-2024 at 10:08 PM.

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

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: The turnout is a proxy of Trevor's failure.

This simple statement sums things up quite succinctly.

There was a time when Trevor attending an event was a draw card. Back when everyone wanted to know what new goodies is A-EON planning to bestow on all the good and true Amiga boys and girls. There was always other stuff happening on the periphery in Amigaland, but A-EON were the main act.
But the final chapter for PPC Amiga has been written and published. There is nothing more to say on the subject. And the person who tried to define the Amiga for a new generation couldn't even define what an Amiga is in 2024.

While the size of the event didn't surprise me in any way, I can't remember the last time they had so many AV, network and other technical issues.

Last edited by agami on 28-Oct-2024 at 11:31 PM.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@agami

What did you think of DiscreetFX’s compelling offer to AmiWest attendees?

_________________
Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@thread
Sigh.

@matthey

I really don't know what you were expecting?! A-EON sold the two A1222+ boards they brought. Matthew continued selling A600GS machines and there was some small updates from Steve Solie about Mulit-Core and Libre Office! What else?

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

@matthey

So I guess you're a Glass Half Empty kinda of guy?

I'm more of Glass Half full. Its a simple way of looking at the world differently, would I like Amiga to be more popular, of course. But I think it's amazing, 30years after Commodore bankruptcy, they're still such a great mini community developing such cool things. Specially when compare it to Atari, Spectrum, Acorn, Commodore (C64) and other platforms that were out around the 80s and 90s. They do have community and some developments and hardware hacks for their platform too, but I feel Amiga punch above its weight for User groups, meetings, magazine, amount of hardware still coming out for it.

I just watched Trevors "What is the Amiga in 2024?" speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hpi3GBI9w&t=5040s

It really gives a great overview of all the options and things Amiga community are working on.

_________________
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@matthey

Dave Haynie's talk was great! Again, what were you expecting? Yes, I'd prefer to go to the 40th Amiga Anniversary meet in Germany or Kickstart 03 in the UK but then most Americans bought Nintendos for their homes and not A500 home computers so again what do you expect?

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

@matthey

Additionally, Beth Richards was there! I'd love to meet the architect of the CD1200 Amiga CD-Rom prototype. The glass is half FULL most definitely!

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

@DiscreetFX

I recently looked at this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBG3PIvoX1M

(I have not tried to use Linux as my main OS in many years, I think it was 2000-2004 or something like that. i dual booted a Linux in 1997-1999)

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 29-Oct-2024 at 08:29 PM.

_________________
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Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

amigang Quote:

So I guess you're a Glass Half Empty kinda of guy? I'm more of Glass Half full. Its a simple way of looking at the world differently, would I like Amiga to be more popular, of course. But I think it's amazing, 30years after Commodore bankruptcy, they're still such a great mini community developing such cool things. Specially when compare it to Atari, Spectrum, Acorn, Commodore (C64) and other platforms that were out around the 80s and 90s. They do have community and some developments and hardware hacks for their platform too, but I feel Amiga punch above its weight for User groups, meetings, magazine, amount of hardware still coming out for it.

The 68k Amiga hardware is not a glass half full. Emulation and simulation is 1/3 the performance at best but performance is less important than other factors like compatibility, modern I/O features and price. The value in features/$ and performance/$ is actually much worse because of the high price of Amiga hardware. Compare the value of 68k Amiga hardware and RPi hardware and the Amiga glass is not even 5% full. What is left of the active Amiga community tends to be extreme optimists that ignore the reality of their glass being practically empty.

amigang Quote:

I just watched Trevors "What is the Amiga in 2024?" speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hpi3GBI9w&t=5040s It really gives a great overview of all the options and things Amiga community are working on.

Trevor: "Next-Generation PowerPC"



Trevor: hardware emulation with FPGA



Trevor: We are Amiga.

I was going to put a huge crowd of Amiga people with bags over there head to represent the Amiga fans that skipped the show but I couldn't find a pic of a big enough crowd with bags over their head. Some how the following pic seems appropriate for the current Amiga situation though.



The extreme optimists will chime in all is well. Our glass is part full. The A1222 sold a few units and 50 people showed up to an Amiga show. Winning!

BigD Quote:

Dave Haynie's talk was great! Again, what were you expecting? Yes, I'd prefer to go to the 40th Amiga Anniversary meet in Germany or Kickstart 03 in the UK but then most Americans bought Nintendos for their homes and not A500 home computers so again what do you expect?

I enjoyed Dave's speech and many other Amiga fans likely would too but it was not enough to make a trip to Cali with Trevor's Amiga hobby/collector plans for the classes. It is game over for the Amiga with his plans. There is no Amiga market for mass produced PPC hardware. There is potentially a market for mass produced 68k Amiga hardware and it can be produced cheaper than PPC hardware due to the smaller footprint and lack of competitive 68k hardware allowing very cheap low end hardware that can dominate the market. For all the FPGA Amiga hardware reinventing the Amiga wheel, none have fulfilled what should have been the goal from the start which is to make an ASIC 68k SoC to vastly increase hardware value. All of the reinventing and division of the 68k Amiga hardware and AmigaOS wheel is due to this failure. Trevor is oblivious and his PPC AmigaNOne hobby blocks real opportunities to make the 68k Amiga proliferate again. Retro Games Limited understood it when they tried to get Jeri to make an Amiga ASIC for THEA500 Mini but they couldn't even get the AmigaOS so they were not going to invest in major cost reductions of the hardware. I see the chess board and see the outcome of Trevor's hobby strategy with the result being a further decline of the Amiga when there is a real opportunity to win.

The US retro market is more difficult to penetrate than the European retro market for the Amiga but not impossible. I met a young retro gaming fan playing a MMORPG recently. Sure enough, she is a Nintendo fan which is not surprising. She likes anime and the Japanese artistic style that the Amiga largely missed out on. I introduced her to some Eric Schwartz art, showed some other artistic games like Out of this World and Shadow of the Beast, showed her a video of all the Amiga CD32 games and showed her a comparison of influential RPG games on the 1983 NES vs 1985 Amiga like Legend of Zelda vs DungeonMaster. She loves what she sees of the Amiga which she didn't know existed before but there isn't any 68k Amiga hardware which is good value that I can recommend. THEA500 Mini comes close and may be close enough for ex-Amiga users but it doesn't offer enough value for the majority of the market, especially non-Amiga retro gaming fans. An Amiga only toy could work if the price was cheap enough but there is plenty of universal retro gaming hardware that is cheaper. Young people are extremely price sensitive. I can tell you exactly what hardware she was looking at as she asked my opinion of it.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806596747489.html

She is considering a universal $26.47 USD Chinese handheld toy using emulation. The CPU is an 8-stage in-order Cortex-A35 which has a little less performance than THEA500 Mini Cortex-A53 and likely suffers from the same load-to-use stalls sharing a similar but lower power design and making it a poor choice for emulation. It would probably be adequate for emulating 8-bit hardware like the NES and SNES but it is going to be a dog for more demanding systems in the supported list of "MAME/N64/PS1/NEOGEO/ /FC/SFC/MD/CPS1/CPS2/CPS3/ , etc.". The "More Than 10,000 Selected Classic Games" is illegal but that is more of a problem for sellers than buyers and immensely increases the value and convenience. The handheld is made cheap but may be adequate quality and at that price I can't say it is a bad deal even if it only works to emulate older retro systems. I did tell her an OoO CPU RPi 4 or 5 with RetroPi would be a better option with more performance for higher end retro system emulation but it is not a handheld and the higher power used by OoO is not good for battery life, at least without using a more expensive chip process to reduce the power. I also mentioned FPGA devices and their more accurate simulation than emulation but using a FPGA for the CPU+chipset is too expensive except for old 8-bit and 16-bit CPUs. A system with real CPU and FPGA chipset could be kept affordable for universal retro gaming but there is a lack of competitive retro hardware. The retro market is large but most hardware is a quick money grab rather than investing in quality cost reduced hardware and building a sustainable market of loyal users like RPi Foundation. There are a few exceptions using FPGA but they could be much cheaper if using real CPUs with FPGA chipsets.

Last edited by matthey on 29-Oct-2024 at 09:12 PM.

@matthey

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I can say that the show organizers, who are volunteering our time, work to make the best show we can with our limited resources. I hope someday you can visit the show to understand why folks come back year after year.

Cheers,
Bill