@amigadave

The question is flawed. The OS4 market is actually tiny. So are a few other markets. The key to success is to combine several market demands in one unified product. Hence, the question for a company must be: How to design a machine that is actually sellable to a broad audience which includes OS4/MorphOS ppl?

Make something like a "raspberry ppc" and you could have a winner. A board with some general usefulness, that fully supports Linux, but comes with a few goodies. E.g. haveing another ISA than ARM (advantage and disadvantage), offer more obscure OS support (OS4, MorphOS, good network hardware integrated).
A rather simple board (and only the board, not whole computers) that goes for pocket money ( it doesn't need to be the cheapest of them all, just stay as low as posible, say less than 100 or maybe even 200 EUR). With a price like that ppl just buy hings out of curiosity. Problem: such an endeavour requires serious funds. But it could work out.
Unfortunately Freescale doesn't offer the perfect chip for such a target (512x too weak, most QorIQ too specialized and with increased power not that cheap any more, the T102x is probably the best choice for that, but prices ae not yet available). But the high network performance of those chips could be the foundation to differentiate from other tiny cheap boards out there.

Last edited by Zylesea on 30-Mar-2014 at 10:44 PM.

_________________
My programs: via.bckrs.de
MorphOS user since V0.4 (2001)

xxxx

Last edited by OlafS25 on 30-Mar-2014 at 10:49 PM.

@Zylesea

How can a simple question that asks other members here to put a number to their guesses of how many people might be interested in buying a Cyrus based AmigaOne in the future be flawed?

Don't make it into something more complicated than the simple question that I am asking.

I don't disagree that what you say is valid, and that making a product that appeals to a wider audience is a wiser choice for any company, but that is not my question. It might answer my misgivings and fears for A-Eon as a profitable company, but I think I specifically mentioned in my original post for people to NOT place their own opinions on what A-Eon and AmigaKit should, or should not be doing differently in their business decisions.

That is NOT the point of this thread. I was just curious and interested in seeing the numbers other members here would come up with, compared to the numbers I wrote in my original post. There is no other agenda for this thread.

In hindsight, I should have just made this into a simple poll, instead of a forum discussion.

_________________
Amiga! The computer that inspired so many, to accomplish so much, but has ended up in the hands of . . . . . . . . . .

@amigakit

You have seen what? I'm not sure what you're talking about, OWB 1.23 runs perfect on my AmigaOne 500, I'm loving the browser :) There's no performance issues at all as far as I can tell, except for a few sites but that was the case before 1.23 as well.

Last edited by Vistaus on 30-Mar-2014 at 11:55 PM.

_________________
Proud user of AmigaOS 4.1 on an AmigaONE 500. This is the first Amiga I've ever had so I don't know all the ins and outs of AmigaOS yet, so I'm sorry if I'm asking noob questions and stuff.

@Vistaus

I have a SAM460 here too, so I can compare the performance. OWB 1.23 is a really nice browser- a big step forward. Browsing is oerfectly acceptable speed, but much snappier experience on the X1000. The main peformance difference is during play of YouTube movies. We have some software solutions for this - watch this space.

_________________
Amiga Kit Amiga Store
Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS

@amigadave

i have same460ex now.. and i want something from A-eon. so im interested in the cyrus+ . but not x1000. it cost to much.

_________________
nox's in the house!

@amigadave

Quote:

how many do you think would be interested in spending in excess of $2,000 US dollars on a new AmigaOne Cyrus based system?

At least one or more

Because, I'm one those who plans to buy Cyrus.

However not before the drivers are ready for it, etc etc (including multicore support in OS4). But when this is ready I'm prepared to chip in for a complete system (if I think it's "good" enough). Or I just buy the board and RAM including the OS and build my own system around Cyrus. :P

Meanwhile I'm happy with my Sam440ep-flex ...

Last edited by marko on 31-Mar-2014 at 02:37 AM.
Last edited by marko on 31-Mar-2014 at 02:36 AM.

_________________
AmigaOS 4.1 FEu2 on Sam440ep-flex 800MHz 1GB RAM
C128, A500+, A1200, A1200/40, AmigaForever 2008+09+16, 5 x86/x64 boxes
Still waiting (or dreaming) for the Amiga revolution...
m4rko.com/AMIGA

Quote:

Zylesea wrote: The question is flawed. The OS4 market is actually tiny. So are a few other markets. The key to success is to combine several market demands in one unified product. Hence, the question for a company must be: How to design a machine that is actually sellable to a broad audience which includes OS4/MorphOS ppl? Make something like a "raspberry ppc" and you could have a winner. A board with some general usefulness, that fully supports Linux, but comes with a few goodies. E.g. having another ISA than ARM (advantage and disadvantage), offer more obscure OS support (OS4, MorphOS, good network hardware integrated). A rather simple board (and only the board, not whole computers) that goes for pocket money ( it doesn't need to be the cheapest of them all, just stay as low as possible, say less than 100 or maybe even 200 EUR). With a price like that ppl just buy hings out of curiosity. Problem: such an endeavor requires serious funds. But it could work out. Unfortunately Freescale doesn't offer the perfect chip for such a target (512x too weak, most QorIQ too specialized and with increased power not that cheap any more, the T102x is probably the best choice for that, but prices ae not yet available). But the high network performance of those chips could be the foundation to differentiate from other tiny cheap boards out there.

I think you have the right idea. It's not easy to go cheap with PPC hardware though (besides old Macs). I think the real surprise will be a resurgence of classic hardware. An accelerator for an Amiga 600 sells hundreds of units. The next accelerator targets a much wider audience with performance that should exceed the 68060 (more features and a reasonable price too). I would not be surprised to see sales in the thousands. I expect the fpgaArcade to sell tens of thousands of units (not all Amiga but that is the Raspberry Pi concept too). I predict the classic market will grow immensely in the next 1-2 years and AROS 68k with it. I think the AmigaOS 4.x market is pretty stagnant although SMP and a laptop could help rebound it but the high cost will keep a ceiling on the numbers. I don't see that AmigaOS 4.x has any plan that will gain them a bigger market share. Hyperion and AEon are still dreaming that all the classic and MOS users will switch to AmigaOS 4.x but it's not going to happen. There is a better chance that AmigaOS 4.x will lose market share to a resurging, cheap and fun classic or MOS will cut prices and/or start supporting another more popular CPU.

@amigadave

Quote:

amigadave wrote: Ever since I talked with Trevor Dickinson at one of the past AmiWest Shows and he told me that he intended to continue building Next Gen AmigaOne hardware systems, beyond his great X1000 system, I have wondered and questioned, and frankly feared for A-Eon's future sales potential.

I was thinking much the same thing.

I don't follow NG very closely these days but it seems obvious to me that the market for a new high-end OS4 machine would have to be pretty small. The basic assumption is that most of the people who wanted an expensive OS4 machine have already brought an X1000 or two.

A small group of X1000 owners might want to upgrade to a new machine if it offered something significant over the X1000 but that's about it IMMHO.

I really think I will wait for an Altivec equipped machine, SMP should be done by then.

Chris

@matthey

I would be greatly surprised (and very pleased) if anything connected to the Amiga community "sold in the thousands" on units.

I have been waiting for the FPGA Arcade Replay to make the jump to mass production for a couple of years now, but it has not happened yet. I see that as a product that spans several different hobby niches and think that it could have a very good chance to sell a few thousand units, if mass produced at a reasonable price and marketed just a little bit, to the right groups of people.

Other than that, I don't see anything else in our community that could come close to selling even 1,000 units, but please, somebody prove me wrong.

_________________
Amiga! The computer that inspired so many, to accomplish so much, but has ended up in the hands of . . . . . . . . . .

@amigadave

Quote:

amigadave wrote: @matthey I would be greatly surprised (and very pleased) if anything connected to the Amiga community "sold in the thousands" on units. Other than that, I don't see anything else in our community that could come close to selling even 1,000 units, but please, somebody prove me wrong.

In my infinite wisdom I can only envisage a few ways to monetising the 'brand'

1) Manufacturing drop-in replacement motherboards for Classics and selling them dirt cheap
2) Selling some miniaturised A500/1200 FPGA thing running AROS and selling it dirt cheap
3) Creating a really nice x86 OS4 and selling it dirt cheap

Cons:
1) Small market, never sell that many so hard to get costs down
2) Could actually work to a degree if marketed properly, still wouldn't make anyone rich of course (actually, it would probably bankrupt them due to the massive investment needed). Also a bit of a legal nightmare due to Copyright B/S.
3) Not going to happen, would require massive investment which would never be recovered.

@topic

AOS4 HW market ~ thousand units.
MOS HW market - thousand units.
AROS HW market - hundreds units.

Those SW offerings need to improve for further growth.

Then, more afforable HW is needed.

I imagine:
AOS4+MOS+AROS+Linux PPC market can be 10 000 units with ~200eur HW (initially).
AROS+Linux x86 custom HW market can be thousands of units easily (rebranded HW from manufacturer that is capable to produce the same HW for years)
etc...

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

Quote:

amigadave wrote: I would be greatly surprised (and very pleased) if anything connected to the Amiga community "sold in the thousands" on units.

I think there will be good demand at the right performance/price ratio ;)

Quote:

I have been waiting for the FPGA Arcade Replay to make the jump to mass production for a couple of years now, but it has not happened yet. I see that as a product that spans several different hobby niches and think that it could have a very good chance to sell a few thousand units, if mass produced at a reasonable price and marketed just a little bit, to the right groups of people.

The fpga technology takes a long time to develop but it's maturing. I believe the fpgaArcade will be out this year. Developing console emulations is what could really make the fpgaArcade popular. I'm talking Genesis, NeoGeo, X68000, NES, SNES, etc.

This may be the year for the Phoenix/Apollo fpga CPU too. The 1st attempt to bring it up in Majsta's accelerator is scheduled for next weekend. The small Altera Cyclone II isn't really big enough for a fully pipelined superscalar 68k but it still could turn some heads as far as performance. The next accelerator will have room to explore the limits of an fpga CPU. I believe it's possible to move significantly past the 68060 in performance and fpgas are getting faster and cheaper all the time. It won't have a high clock rate but rather a lot of parallelism and it will be very strong in memory. We are talking 2-3Mips/MHz and maybe 3 integer pipes. There are still a lot of potential road blocks and it needs development time including debugging.

Quote:

Other than that, I don't see anything else in our community that could come close to selling even 1,000 units, but please, somebody prove me wrong.

It will take time to rebuild any Amiga market and gain momentum. The Natami generated enough interest judging by it's web site hits that one would expect it would have sold over 1000 units but then it wasn't going to be cheap, unless comparing it to AmigaOS 4.x hardware :P.

@KimmoK

Your calculation is AROS=X86 (the typical platform in the past) but AROS=ARM and AROS=68k

I have more than 400 downloads of AROS Vision lately and most opportunities are in the future like being the only legal option for FPGA based hardware, it will be included in the new IndieGO AppStore and it will be used in Broadway/Aeros for 68k emulation. So the best times are still to come . And it has the big advantages that it can be freely downloaded and is adaptable. So I do not share your view of AROS. I have the same opinion as Matthew, the 68k branch will be the most popular of all AROS branches and much more important than AmigaOS or MorphOS. Reason is that it is widely usable thanks to emulation and adaptable to real hardware and avoids all the AmigaInc./Hyperion legal issues.

I also see chances for the ARM branch because competition there is less and AROS is perfect for low-performance devices.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 31-Mar-2014 at 09:41 AM.

@thread

i've jus done a quick research on the web and i found that there are a lot of powerpc board producers, mainly on the industrial sector.

PowerLinux in an emerging market, sustained by IBM.

I wonder if amiga may find it's place here. Considering that both Acube and A-eon have linux distributions for their systems, a wise conducted campain may enlarge the market.

_________________
retired

@OlafS25

Quote:

AmigaInc./Hyperion legal issues.

That's nothing but FUD.

There is nothing to worry about, there has not been any legal actions, in many years, beside the last time there was issue it ended in a settlement agreement. Unless the agreement is broken there is no way there will be any more legal problems.

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@OlafS25

I think AROS is the most immature. (and I hope it will mature fast) And it being immature limits possible AROS dedicated HW market growth.
(and I can not see how our niche could support x86 standard(less) HW better than for example Linux (and I see linux fail in supporting new x86 HW).

I think AROS has 0% change in ARM. (but it can change once RPi is forgotten and something better exist to buy, something semi desktop usable)
68k is a dead end outside RETRO market. Other than that, 68k RETRO computer could sell in tens of thousands. (1% market share of retro computing???)

(I personally am not interested in ARM AROS with no real SW and far below cell phone performance, far below my SAM440. I'm a little bit interested in RETRO, but for me it needs to be NG compatible.)

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

@NutsAboutAmiga

Really? I am not convinced

@KimmoK

we will see what will come...

BTW Aros 68k is "NG" compatible (inherits all changes from AROS)

Last edited by OlafS25 on 31-Mar-2014 at 12:07 PM.