@jahc

A 7448 or 7447A board would be nice too (I would prefer 7447A because its much cheaper). But please a microATX or mini-ITX board with everything onboard like USB, FireWire, Ethernet, PATA or SATA, PCI or AGP or PCIe. Just like a normal board looks like.

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@AmigaBlitter

Quote:

New and more powerful chips (pin compatible) are in development by IBM.

That would be very odd, considering IBM sold that whole CPU line to AMCC a fair while back....

@CodeSmith

Sam as a laptop running OS4

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@umisef

Not if they're paying them for development.

Of course, if my memory serves me right, they are doing develoment in house. Or atleast when it comes to their next gen core.

@TheDaddy

Quote:

TheDaddy wrote: @CodeSmith Sam as a laptop running OS4

We already want to see OS4 running on it ... even in a desktop. Does Linux work on Sam ? Did they show something else than a naked board ?

@corto

Quote:

corto wrote: ... We already want to see OS4 running on it ... even in a desktop. Does Linux work on Sam ? Did they show something else than a naked board ?

Like a nipple? Sorry... getting a bit over-enthausiastic.

More seriously, at the moment I'd settle for anything running OS4 and a reasonable price. IIRC back in the late 80s we paid something in the region of what now would be 1000 euro's (a 2500 dutch guilders) for a complete Amiga 500 set (A500, A1084S and Star NX1000 Rainbow printer, all demo-models). I'm not saying that I'd be happy to fork out 1000 euros, but I'm not ruling it out either

Last edited by Amiga_3k on 24-Sep-2006 at 09:15 AM.

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I have not yet heard any confirmation that Samatha has been seen running Linux - that would be GREAT news, and put them many months ahead of Troika.

The use of a low-power embedded PPC worries me - you can't assume that it will perform like a G3 (and from what Bernie says it could seriously under-perform in some cases). While OS4 itself may still work OK on such a system, cool stuff like DVD players may not.

Some have suggested that there will be higher-performance boards after Samatha, but if that isn't just wishful thinking, how far along are they with better boards? I suspect that any better board is going to be many months behind Samantha.


On the assumption that Samantha *does* run Linux, I am please to finally see a potential OS4 mobo that (a) looks to be realistically aimed at larger markets beyond OS4, and (b) from a company that doesn't make a fool of themselves in public or make empty PR announcements.

But it still seems that Amiga Inc's stupid licensing system is going to massively delay Samantha being sold with OS4: First they have to earn 500k a year (hopefully projected & probably from selling Sam to other markets), which must surely take a few months. Only once the license is obtained will they be able pay Hyperion to port OS4, which is another month or two. Then they have to get everything manufactured, sent to dealers & advertised, which is probably another month or more. So it seems to me that there could be a wait of at least 6 months before Samantha is sold with OS4...

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@DJBase

Quote:

A 7448 or 7447A board would be nice too (I would prefer 7447A because its much cheaper)...

No you wouldn't... I am sure that just the fact that the 7448 has a FSB of 200MHz will make a huge difference...

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@ChrisH
Quote:

But it still seems that Amiga Inc's stupid licensing system is going to massively delay Samantha being sold with OS4: First they have to earn 500k a year (hopefully projected & probably from selling Sam to other markets), which must surely take a few months. Only once the license is obtained will they be able pay Hyperion to port OS4, which is another month or two. Then they have to get everything manufactured, sent to dealers & advertised, which is probably another month or more. So it seems to me that there could be a wait of at least 6 months before Samantha is sold with OS4...

Not necessarely - I don't know if the firm behind Sam is a start-up. Maybe there is someone big enough behind them. At least I hope so - afaik didn't amiga already turn away some hw because of too small revenues?

Last edited by quenthal on 24-Sep-2006 at 10:41 AM.
Last edited by quenthal on 24-Sep-2006 at 10:40 AM.

Quote:

hnl_dk wrote: @DJBase Quote: A 7448 or 7447A board would be nice too (I would prefer 7447A because its much cheaper)... No you wouldn't... I am sure that just the fact that the 7448 has a FSB of 200MHz will make a huge difference...

Considering that if OS4 does ever run on it, the perceived speed of the complete system will be faster than if a mainstream OS like W*nd*ws, M*c*S or even L*n*x were running on it,, and that we're probably better having a cheaper board to start with, so as to get it into the hands of as many developpers as possible, I tend to agree with DJBAse. Not that you're wrong about the FSB making a huge difference, of course. However, I think the Sam is quite a reasonable comprise between power and availability. Let's just hope the price is too.

I'd be tempted to get one.

@quenthal

Isn't it a 3-company afair?

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@DJBase

Samantha have sisters.

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@ChrisH

Quote:

But it still seems that Amiga Inc's stupid licensing system is going to massively delay Samantha being sold with OS4: First they have to earn 500k a year (hopefully projected & probably from selling Sam to other markets), which must surely take a few months. Only once the license is obtained will they be able pay Hyperion to port OS4, which is another month or two. Then they have to get everything manufactured, sent to dealers & advertised, which is probably another month or more. So it seems to me that there could be a wait of at least 6 months before Samantha is sold with OS4...

Dunno if you've listened to Bill's speech yet, but he sounds pretty positive about Samantha in that speech so you'd expect that their licensing discussions are at an advanced stage and that an agreement will be reached very soon.

He also mentions one other hardware partner who may be showing a higher end board at Amiwest. From the information mentioned above I would speculate that this is probably ACK. Bill sounded slightly less certain about this, but still reasonably confident, so it seems license negotiations are probably going well there, too. He did talk about there soon being multiple hardware platforms to choose from.

The only question mark hangs over Troika who in the best case have not yet approached Amiga Inc yet, and in the worse case have been turned down for a license. (Although I suppose there's nothing stopping them from re-applying once they have addressed Amiga Inc's concerns if that is the case)

Bear in mind also, that the Friedens said that they expected to be able to release OS4 in December if the hardware is available. That implies that they believe that there will be time to port to the new hardware by December as long as it is available on schedule. That's far from a guarantee, of course, as we well know that hardly anything ever goes to plan around here, but I doubt we will have much longer than a few months to wait before they are able to release OS4 for the new hardware.

@corto

Quote:

corto wrote: @TheDaddy Quote: TheDaddy wrote: @CodeSmith Sam as a laptop running OS4 We already want to see OS4 running on it ... even in a desktop. Does Linux work on Sam ? Did they show something else than a naked board ?

No only the naked board was presented.
Linux already run on it since they used it to test the performance against microA1, bytheway the 533MHz version already beat it.
The driver for Os4 are already under development.

@Richi

Quote:

No only the naked board was presented. Linux already run on it since they used it to test the performance against microA1, bytheway the 533MHz version already beat it.

I guess this is gonna make a few bananas pop up

Quote:

The driver for Os4 are already under development.

If true, I guess this is gonna make a horde of bananas pop up!
Now, is this *for sure* or just something you're figuring out from the Q&A session (see quote below) or some other source?

Quote:

Ami603: having OS4 already drivers for the Silicon Image Serial Ata chipset, radeon chipset, what's missing for it to be fully supported(besides HAL)? AndreaV: what is still to be done (driver-wise): AndreaV: ethernet, serial, and the FPGA is we decide to support it under OS4

(IMHO, this part can hardly mean something else...)

saimo

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@hnl_dk

The 7447A can run at up to 167 MHz Busclock and is available in up to 1420 MHz. That would be more than enough if we can save some bucks against the 7448.

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@saimo

Please note that you can develop the drivers without the need of the hardware itself.There are audio cards with the same chipset as seen on SAM board.Same for USB OHCI,Radeon Chipset.

The missing bits (EHCI USB 1.1 and ethernet are bundled on the 440 core)is a different matter, thus needing the board itself for being able to port the kernel HAL and drivers.

I don't know myself if the board already runs OS4 or not,however.

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@saimo

What benchmarks did they run? It would be nice if we got numbers on something we all have a feel for, eg a Quake timedemo.

Quote:

the FPGA is we decide to support it under OS4

Mmm, sam440fpga.resource - I like the sound of that

Jens Schoenfeld has a lot of experience with that sort of thing from his C-One computer, which is basically a Sam440 but with a 65C816 instead of a PPC; all its digital circuitry (memory controller, video, audio, IDE, serial, even a 6510 or a z80 main CPU) is implemented using just two FPGAs. The Sam team may want to talk to him about it.

Last edited by CodeSmith on 24-Sep-2006 at 08:57 PM.

@CodeSmith

Quote:

What benchmarks did they run? It would be nice if we got numbers on something we all have a feel for, eg a Quake timedemo.

I have no idea. I wasn't there

saimo

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@Richi

Quote:

Linux already run on it since they used it to test the performance against microA1, bytheway the 533MHz version already beat it.

Source for that statement?

Because all the benchmarks I could find indicate that (a) clock for clock, the 440EP is slower than the 750GX, and (b) the 440 suffers badly compared to the 750 when it overflows L1 cache. And memory bandwidth isn't going to be any better than on the A1, either --- being DDR at best makes up for the half-width memory bus.

But regardless of actual performance --- it would be good to know that the actual Sam board has booted Linux and worked reliably. Not the AMCC 440EP evaluation board (which Sam is undoubtedly based on, but which is still a different board) --- *that one* comes with Linux preinstalled.