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davidf215 Quote:

Which is a great reason for an Amiga branded smartphone, I think.

For an Android or Linux smartphone with an Amiga label, no thanks. Just run an Amiga emulator on your smartphone and put an Amiga sticker on it yourself.

For a 68k Amiga SoC based smart phone, a GUI overhaul would be required but it might not be bad to think about what is needed like allowing all Reaction gadgets to be variable sized and a system wide setting to enlarge them for touch screen use. This would allow supporting tablets and kiosks more easily as well. The User Interface Style Guide could use an update anyway. A competitive smartphone would be expensive to build, there is lots of competition and most potential customers already have a smartphone. RPi style SBCs are the cheapest and easiest place for the Amiga to compete but I would rather look at something like a netbook (low power notebook) or possibly tablet if developing for a consumer mobile device.

@NutsAboutAmiga

No, it wouldn't run AOS, but that wouldn't be its purpose. It's more about marketing and creating brand awareness and maybe generating additional funds. Porting AOS to ARM for a phone isn't a goal although porting existing or creating AOS software to it would give the phone a niche. Yeah, running UAE on a phone would not be a good idea; it may work on a tablet but not a phone.

@Thread

My daughter recognises the ‘Amiga symbol’ boing ball now! She did her first Deluxe Paint animation last weekend Building memories, having daughter/daddy time and introducing the Amiga as a fun no nonsense tool without the distractions of internet ‘features’ or ‘sharing’ as a means to an end! If she gets really good then we’ll put them on YouTube but her creations are for us and our loved ones until then!

… oh yeah and my son wants a go too! It’s not hard is it?

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davidf215 Quote:

No, it wouldn't run AOS, but that wouldn't be its purpose. It's more about marketing and creating brand awareness and maybe generating additional funds. Porting AOS to ARM for a phone isn't a goal although porting existing or creating AOS software to it would give the phone a niche. Yeah, running UAE on a phone would not be a good idea; it may work on a tablet but not a phone.

It's a good idea to generate cash flow from product licensing and raise Amiga brand awareness but I worry about tainting the brand with low quality products.

The Amiga history was affected by poor quality products. The original Hi-Toro Amiga Corporation tried to self fund by selling Atari products. The Atari video game market collapsed partially because of a flood of low quality games and accessories for the Atari. Hi-Toro ran into financial problems and had to sell out to CBM. Hi-Toro had been trying to enter the video game market with the Amiga but CBM was wary of this due to the Atari video game market collapse and wanted a computer. The Amiga 1000 was designed by the original Hi-Toro group led by Jay Miner and was the last Amiga designed by them. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) revived the video game market with quality products. Nintendo had a Nintendo Seal of Quality for products which passed their evaluation and approval. CBM had the C64 computer which was technically not much different than the NES and the Amiga which was originally designed as a video game hardware yet sadly didn't enter the video game market with a console until 1993.

CBM didn't have a good reputation either. CBM was known for cheap business equipment instead of quality products and CBM business partners generally didn't like or trust CBM. Jack Tramiel was a shady and controlling character himself. He was investigated for a connection with a fraud scheme by Atlantic Acceptance which was funding CBM as a subsidiary. As a result, a CBM loan was called which brought in Irving Gould as a stock holder. Irving Gould was also shady and controlling which led to conflicts later. CBMs financial headquarters were moved to the Bahamas where shady companies go that want less transparency in their financials. There were rumors that Gould was using CBM money to fly around on personal business trips. In contrast to CBM, IBM had a very good reputation which allowed it to sell unspectacular PC hardware in a similar and higher price range than the Amiga which had a superior OS and hardware. Integrity, quality, reputation and ethics are important for a business!

@matthey

Quote:

Most of these mini consoles are mass produced which means creating an SoC ASIC can be a cost reduction

Then why do most of them use Arm? Most seem to have a Allwinner Arm chip, with a basic Linux OS running emulation, it how, the nes mini, c64mini, ps1 mini, mega drive mini all do it.

Having a fpga version that can do it all sounds good on paper but getting other companies to sign off on that is going to up the cost of the product, plus we already got this, mister.

Trust me for the mass consumer sector you want to keep it as simple as possible.

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@amigang,

You stated the issue, "emulation" arm is emulation to not do so you must use a 680XX CPU. No 86060's exists anymore so move up to an FPGA, max it, Bake it into ASIC, turn up the clock.....
New 86085. Simple = Money. If only I had that around....

Chris

amigang Quote:

Then why do most of them use Arm? Most seem to have a Allwinner Arm chip, with a basic Linux OS running emulation, it how, the nes mini, c64mini, ps1 mini, mega drive mini all do it.

ARM is easy and cheap. The NES and C64 are very simple. The Mega Drive is a little more difficult to handle and the PS1 is pretty difficult to recreate accurately. People have been complaining about the lack of accuracy of the PS1 mini. See the comments at the bottom of the following article which talks about the hardware used.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/sep/19/sony-announces-playstation-classic-mini-console

People are wondering why they didn't use a real MIPS CPU and why they wouldn't be better off using a cheaper RPi for emulation instead. This was a cheap and dirty PS1 recreation with a nice looking case. For mass production, they didn't even do a good job of cost reduction. People do notice the hardware inside and care about it. They appreciate hardware done right, cost reductions, features and value.

amigang Quote:

Having a fpga version that can do it all sounds good on paper but getting other companies to sign off on that is going to up the cost of the product, plus we already got this, mister. Trust me for the mass consumer sector you want to keep it as simple as possible.

Mister is awesome but also way too expensive and complicated. It is this that needs to be simplified and cost reduced. The following link is to an excellent video about the MiSTer.

MiSTer FPGA - How to build & configure, demo, cost, and pros/cons (Winter 2020 / 2021)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IP0k3GatHE

The video is a must watch for Amiga fans. It has an Amiga 3000 and C= 1084S monitor from the start and shows the MiniMig core with RTG at 20:50 using AmigaForever resources to run AmigaOS 3. It talks about the advantages and disadvantages of the FPGA vs emulation. The MiSTer FPGA is roomy with 110,000 LE compared to the Vampire v4 FPGA with 77k LE. The MiSTer hardware setup he uses is more powerful than the Vampire V4 hardware but it requires assembling 3 boards that cost $368.50 which he compares at 25:05 to an Amiga 1200 with many options (pics shown). Even with the expensive and roomy MiSTer FPGA hardware, the FPGA simulation will have trouble recreating much past the NeoGeo because higher performance CPUs and GPUs require too much logic. The Vampire is limited also in FPGA because CPUs and GPUs require too much logic. To reduce cost, only simulate the chipsets in FPGA and use a real 68k CPU for the Genesis, NeoGeo, X68000, AtariST and older Amiga chipsets for best compatibility. The cheaper FPGA would still be able to simulate 8 bit CPUs and chipsets. There would be support for 90% of what the MiSTer can support but costing much less to produce. With two 68k cores, the Amiga could remain running on one core as the controller software and the need for a 2nd computer and uploads to the MiSTer could be eliminated. This could all be produced on one board in RPi form factor for not much more than the cost of a RPi. It could be the ultimate affordable and hackable retro gaming system. It also has interesting possibilities for using the FPGA for embedded use and FPGA hardware acceleration codecs. It is a little bit complicated but it would be a simplification and cost reduction of what is already available.

P.S. Some of the simpler hardware recreations are using FPGAs like the Nt Mini, Super Nt, Mega Sg and RetroUSB's AVS.

Last edited by matthey on 08-Jul-2021 at 06:03 AM.

I think AOS/MOS servers a very good introductory point on the computer world. It's a line of OS which has everything open and exposed to the user and a very good (logical) file/folder structure compared to iOS or Android which everything is hidden from the user or Windows/Mac which have many components closed.

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@BigD

I work in a UK secondary school and today I took an Amiga 500+ and Amiga 1200 in for the A-Level computing students (17 year olds) to play some games on. They really enjoyed it!

So they were a bit miffed that the games they played didn't have save points and if you lost all your lives you started back at level one. Joysticks also confused them, mainly because they are used to joypads and each joypad button doing something different, whereas on the joysticks all buttons did the same thing.

They liked Lemmings, a few were addicted to Lotus 2 (including the Head of Computing who played it through the morning meeting! He'd never used an Amiga until a few weeks ago when I took an A1200 in for him to see). SWOS was "too fast" for them and only one student managed to score a goal vs the Amiga....a joyous moment for him. Ruff N Tumble was described as "the hardest first level of any game I've ever played" by one student who was over joyed at eventually making it to level 3. He also described it as the best graphics of all the games we played.

I also had a RPi emulating a C64. They played Action Biker and Batman (the movie). Loved them both and wanted to do better with each go! I thought that they would be put off immediately by the graphics of both the C64 and Amiga but no, playability was a key factor.

Did they "get" the Amiga? Some did and could clearly see the influences that older games have on current games.

@parrish

Great! The next step would be to introduce them to AmigaLive! for casual streaming gaming with friends or if they are really keen the MiSTer or UnAmiga or even a V4 Standalone!

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@parrish
I sympathise with your students. I think games from that era are impossibly difficult by today’s standards. I was never very good back in the 90s and usually had to invoke a cheat code. Nowadays if I boot up an Amiga game I turn it off pretty quickly in frustration. Kids these days bought up on today’s games are in for a different ride on old games. They seem to make games for people to actually enjoy as an experience today rather than sweat! Lemmings though is an exceptional game

Last edited by golem on 15-Jul-2021 at 09:36 PM.

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Quote:

parrish wrote: @BigD I work in a UK secondary school and today I took an Amiga 500+ and Amiga 1200 in for the A-Level computing students (17 year olds) to play some games on. They really enjoyed it! So they were a bit miffed that the games they played didn't have save points and if you lost all your lives you started back at level one. Joysticks also confused them, mainly because they are used to joypads and each joypad button doing something different, whereas on the joysticks all buttons did the same thing. They liked Lemmings, a few were addicted to Lotus 2 (including the Head of Computing who played it through the morning meeting! He'd never used an Amiga until a few weeks ago when I took an A1200 in for him to see). SWOS was "too fast" for them and only one student managed to score a goal vs the Amiga....a joyous moment for him. Ruff N Tumble was described as "the hardest first level of any game I've ever played" by one student who was over joyed at eventually making it to level 3. He also described it as the best graphics of all the games we played. I also had a RPi emulating a C64. They played Action Biker and Batman (the movie). Loved them both and wanted to do better with each go! I thought that they would be put off immediately by the graphics of both the C64 and Amiga but no, playability was a key factor. Did they "get" the Amiga? Some did and could clearly see the influences that older games have on current games.

For a gaming platform, game content matters, hence higher importance for SDK quality, source samples, and game engine examples.


Anyway, Valve released Steam Deck handheld game console PC which has the following hardware specs

64 GB: $399 USD
256 GB: $529 USD
512 GB: $649 USD

Last edited by Hammer on 16-Jul-2021 at 03:33 AM.

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@Hammer

I'll definitely be pre-ordering one of these.

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@golem

2-player Lemmings gets my kids in a spin. First they have to work which lemmings are theirs and hence discern which they can control, secondly they have to solve the route to the exit, then they have to scupper or repair damage regarding the other player! I don’t think many ‘simple’ games today ask so much from a young player in such a fun way! Saying that my son completed the PS3 remake of Duck Tails; a traditional ‘hard’ platform game, so he's probably not your average casual gamer.

Last edited by BigD on 16-Jul-2021 at 01:16 PM.

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@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @Hammer I'll definitely be pre-ordering one of these.

Valve has announced millions of Steam Deck to be manufactured and the reservation numbers have been pushed into Q1 2022 manufacturing batch.

For Xmas 1992, Commodore's AGA manufacturing numbers are in the 100,000s.

Valve's Steam Deck crushed Commodore's AGA manufacturing numbers.

Last edited by Hammer on 18-Jul-2021 at 12:05 AM.

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@matthey

Quote:

ARM is easy and cheap. The NES and C64 are very simple. The Mega Drive is a little more difficult to handle and the PS1 is pretty difficult to recreate accurately. People have been complaining about the lack of accuracy of the PS1 mini. See the comments at the bottom of the following article which talks about the hardware used. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/sep/19/sony-announces-playstation-classic-mini-console People are wondering why they didn't use a real MIPS CPU and why they wouldn't be better off using a cheaper RPi for emulation instead. This was a cheap and dirty PS1 recreation with a nice looking case. For mass production, they didn't even do a good job of cost reduction. People do notice the hardware inside and care about it. They appreciate hardware done right, cost reductions, features and value.

PS4 already has a built-in PS2 software emulator. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-hands-on-with-ps4-playstation2-emulation

PlayStation Classic comes preloaded with 20 games, running off the open-source emulator, PCSX ReARMed. PlayStation Classic's production was canceled just over two months after its release.

Steam Deck (Ryzen Zen 2 4C/8T at 2.4Ghz to 3.5 GHz, RDNA v2 8 CU with 1.6 TFLOPS, equivalent to ~2.2 TFLOPS GCN) can easily run a PS2 emulator and run PS4 games in a handheld form factor from $399.

My mobile phone can easily run PCSX ReARMed.

PSX is more than just MIPS R3000 CPU i.e. the CPU relies heavily on the "cop2" 3D and matrix math coprocessor on the same die to provide the necessary speed to render complex 3D graphics. The role of the separate GPU chip is to draw 2D polygons and apply shading and textures to them: the rasterization stage of the graphics pipeline. Sony couldn't be bothered porting PSX ASIC into a modern process node.

PSX didn't approach the 1995 era with just brute force 2nd gen P5 Pentium class CPU with dumb and fast frame buffer VGA.

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@thread

A very first look at the MiSTer Multisystem games console

#6

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@Hammer

Quote:

Valve's Steam Deck crushed Commodore's AGA manufacturing numbers.

So what's your point? The Deck is already too little, too late, generations behind current PCs, but will still sell by the millons?