@geen_naam

Quote:

geen_naam wrote: @Everblue Anything in particular? In my experience most X5000 hardware is active. Yes, there's no dual core support. But ethernet, all usb ports, pci/pcie are all working. Even xena is working although there's no expansion card for it. Maybe I'll create DAC/ADC audio card for it some day. The high quality EVGA NU audio card is also XMOS based. Hardware with software support is always a chicken and egg problem.

It is not as bad as I thought, pity about the dual core support. As for the chicken and egg problem, yes, but that is why one should do develop both hardware and software in parallel.

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@Everblue

Multicore support is in progress:

https://www.amigascene.nl/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=2034

(I could not find the source of the slides, but the picture is from Amiga35)

Last edited by bennymee on 29-Apr-2021 at 12:44 PM.

@bennymee: It's on the official roadmap but I wouldn't expect Multicore in AOS4 soon. It's not an easy task without breaking compatibility.

On the bright side you can at least use Linux as second OS (A-Eon has a Linux-team for this) on X1000, X5000 and A1222Plus. Within Linux Multicore is supported, even with 4 cores on the X5000/40.

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AmigaOne X5000/40, 2.2 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, Radeon R9 280X, M-Audio Revolution 5.1, 240 GB SSD

@Everblue

Quote:

Everblue wrote: I understand that Trevor wanted (or wants) to do his own thing, it is his money after all. I do have some questions, perhaps someone can illuminate me: - why release expensive machines first (X1000) and then (some day, if ever) the A1222, instead of other way round, or in parallel? Releasing the A1222 first would have allowed the whole thing to grow and gain an audience - what is the point of super expensive machines (again, X1000 and X5000) with features that will never be supported by Amiga OS, making them extra expensive for no extra value?

When Trevor started thinking about creating the X1000, he was primarily interested in creating a replacement for the G4 AmigaOne systems that were no longer being manufactured, and wanted performance that was better, not worse. The price got even more expensive due to the required redesigns, and again when the CPU was discontinued by Apple and they became increasingly difficult to purchase. So, he was looking for a replacement for the highest performing NG Amiga systems, not a low cost entry level system, at that time. As for "features that will never be supported by AmigaOS", I didn't know that you were on the AmigaOS4 development team, with inside knowledge about what will be supported in the future, and what will NOT be supported EVER!

Quote:

- instead of splashing all that money like this, why wasn't money used simultaneously to develop more affordable hardware (with reachable features) and contribute towards improving the OS, and most importantly, create new productivity software? (visual enhancements for desktop are nice but they are not system sellers, not even for a hobby machine) I understand that there are technical, legal reasons for all this - but it is a pity that nearly 12 years after the release X1000 we are pretty much where we were then.

Trevor has supported all kinds of Amiga software development for many years, so I would not complain about where he has put his donations, and/or investment money. All AmigaOS4 users are lucky that he has been so generous with his time and money, trying to help out the community, in his own personal pursuit of a better Amiga system. You may not agree with his choices, but should understand that only a few of those decisions were actually made by Trevor, as he has left almost all of the technical decisions up to others, who should have known better, but everyone was trying to make the best decisions they could, at the time the decisions were made. Most of us don't realize how long ago some of those decisions needed to be made, because of the crazy long time that it has taken Hyperion to get any work done on completing the port of AmigaOS4 to the X1000, X5000, and A1222/Tabor.

Personally, I direct 99.9% of my disappointment and disgust toward the incompetence and immorality of the owner of Hyperion. It's pretty easy for me to form my opinions about Hyperion and Ben Hermans, just by observing his/their behavior over the past 10+ years. I wish more Amiga users would share my viewpoint, and stop supporting Hyperion, so we could rid ourselves of their bad influence on our community, and eventually move forward to something more productive and enjoyable. Even if I don't agree 100% with all of the choices Trevor has made over the past decade, it's easy for me to see that he has always had good intentions toward making things better for the community (and therefore his own Amiga using self), and I don't think he has done anything that could be construed as intentionally mean, or disrespectful toward users or developers. I can't say the same for Ben Hermans and Hyperion, who in my opinion, has more interest in money and control of the IP for potential profit, than any real interest in using any Amiga system, but that's just my opinion of course.

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BigD Quote:

The Vampire team and Warp Accelerator teams are showing the way. Small scale fun 68k based projects are the way forward for hobbyists.

geen_naam Quote:

Wow, offering overpriced hardware for 30+ years old machines is the great plan to move forward according to you? Just because the absolute price is lower doesn't make them better value for money. I was wondering when someone would draw the vampire card so here we go: Let's take a quick look at the A500 Vampire V2+ from a BOM perspective: PCB 20 eur FPGA 50 eur memory 18 eur misc 9 eur ---------------------- Total 97 eur @batch of 100 units Value add 30% (assumption) -> 125 EUR FOB Sales price 380 eur Ex vat price = 380/1.21 = 314 eur Factor between FOB and ex vat sales price: 314/125 = 2.5 (this includes margin, cost of warrenty/replacement etc)

I deserve some of the blame. Majsta was planning on providing a revolutionary open hardware accelerator much cheaper than anyone else at the time I suggested to Gunnar to help him get it working and partner with him. Majsta did sell his accelerators for very cheap for a short time.

majsta Quote:

UPDATE: March 1, 2013 There are some rumors about this project regarding final price. Something like: "It's a cool project but it could cost about 500USD". Let me say once more STOP MILKING MONEY FROM RETRO FANS. New PCB redesign is taking place and I m doing major makeover to drop price under 100USD for advanced version and under 50USD for low end version. So stop spread words about high price and that someone again want's to get rich from Amiga name. Will I succeed regarding final price we will see. For now I can't promise anything but that is the final goal regarding the price. Another thing I m removing current survey from website because there is no point for it because we already have an accelerator. So final conclusion will be that 84 people voted that we will never see Amiga FPGA accelerator created by me and 78 of them supported project. Guess what ? :)

https://www.majsta.com/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=1

I also deserve blame for telling him early on that he should raise prices. Donations were being used to subsidize the cost when it is more efficient to make customers pay for it. Also, there was too much risk and overhead which he was not adding in. For example, he had issues with production and old hardware and received counterfeit and damaged FPGAs. He was trying to use the cheapest old stock or used Altera Cyclone II FPGAs to keep the cost down. We tried to get him to use a larger FPGA as the Apollo core really needed a bigger FPGA for a more deeply pipelined and higher performance Apollo core than the TG68.

I was well aware that small scale production using a large FPGA did not offer good value. I suggested adding RTG to improve value. I was pushing for a stand alone board early on. I took initiative on my own to find business partners who could help us make an ASIC and found interest but Gunnar was more focused on what he wanted than what others wanted or needed.

geen_naam Quote:

Now apply these values to the X5000. 1580/1.21 = 1305 -> 1305/2.5= 522 -> 522/1.3 = 401 EUR. I can tell you that the BOM of the X5000 is north of 400 euro. So from BOM vs sales price perspective, the X5000 is better value for money. Let's look at DMIPS/EUR. 380eur/150dmips = 2.53EUR/DMIPS. 1580EUR/6000DMIPS = 0.26EUR/DMIPS. (not counting the second core) And I'm not even talking about expandability and usage of modern graphics and sound cards and amigaos experience in general. So no matter how you look at it, the X5000 is much better value for money.

Most of the performance of a computer comes from the CPU and the AmigaOne line has used professionally developed mass produced CPUs. These commodity CPUs don't always have the features wanted though. The FPGA Amigas trade performance for flexibility and compatibility which should not be underestimated. They could be much higher performance and cheaper as a mass produced ASIC but like the AmigaOS, some people would rather play with their precious than share with the world.

AP Quote:

It's on the official roadmap but I wouldn't expect Multicore in AOS4 soon. It's not an easy task without breaking compatibility.

The 68k emulator for AmigaOS PPC would probably have to check every single write for the address written by Forbid/Permit macros and similar for interrupt macros. Even the 68k AmigaOS uses the macros instead of function calls sometimes. If AmigaOS PPC stopped using the macros and uses the functions only then it would not be necessary for PPC code. There is still huge overhead to stop all the cores, flush the pipelines, write buffers and caches and then restart all the cores. Add in 68k atomic instruction memory operations emulated by multiple PPC instructions which have to complete before stopping cores and the weaker memory model of the PPC for some extra fun. Yea, I wouldn't expect Multicore support in AmigaOS 4 anytime soon either. Might as well break compatibility and add memory protection which is more important with more cores operating.

AP Quote:

On the bright side you can at least use Linux as second OS (A-Eon has a Linux-team for this) on X1000, X5000 and A1222Plus. Within Linux Multicore is supported, even with 4 cores on the X5000/40.

A Raspberry Pi is better supported by Linux and much cheaper.

@matthey

Quote:

A Raspberry P is better supported by Linux and much cheaper.

And x86/64-systems are even better supported and also cheaper. But that wasn't of course my point.

The main-purpose of the X1000 and X5000 was/is of course AmigaOS4 and buyers buy it for AmigaOS4. Fo rLInux there are better supported and cheaper systems.

I just pointed out that there is a possibility to take advantage of all cores of an X5000, X1000 or A1222Plus by using Linux as second OS.

A additional possibility also supported and paid by Trevor.

Last edited by AP on 30-Apr-2021 at 08:31 AM.

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AmigaOne X5000/40, 2.2 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, Radeon R9 280X, M-Audio Revolution 5.1, 240 GB SSD

@AP

Quote:

and buyers buy it for AmigaOS4.

Do they? It that the only 'Killer App'? The look and feel of the GUI? I still think it's the Amiga apps that matter and access to the software and games through a familiar OS is part of it but yeah if you can't fully utilise the hardware on the hobby OS then access to Linux is important.

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

@BigD:>Do they?

Yes. That's the point of an AmigaOS4-system. And of course I mean the whole package (OS and software). No one would buy an X5000 just for Linux, that's only a welcomed addition.

But let's be honest: Even if there would be a serial-killer app you wouldn't buy an AmigaOS4-system.

I think you like more to talk about things you buy or not than actual buy them (or not). A cheap alternative, but boring sometimes.

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AmigaOne X5000/40, 2.2 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, Radeon R9 280X, M-Audio Revolution 5.1, 240 GB SSD

@AP

Quote:

I think you like more to talk about things you buy or not than actual buy them (or not). A cheap alternative, but boring sometimes.

You forget that the A1222 Plus is STILL not available (pre-ordering or 7 year old beta tester launch doesn't count). I'd also quite like a PS5 but they also STILL not available despite selling 7.4 million units! Does that mean that the A1222 Plus is going to get a guaranteed sale off me? No. because it depends whether after it is reviewed (sound and ethernet capabilities included) whether there are utilities or games that I want to run on it that I can't access on my current machines.

Would I consider it an 'upgrade' to my Classic 'miggies? The more time drags on the more I think it may be a retrograde step! Once we get SMP and can't run any 68k software outside of a sandbox I guess ironically OS4.x systems will be even less relevant to me. And once there's an ISA change even less so again as we lose further compatible programs!

So yeah, I guess it's more fun to wite about remakes of Amiga software/games on other platform than it is buying exotic new hardware so that I can open and close windows and 'snapshot' and to 'show all' and get my Workbench drawer structures to my liking while also supporting the lawyers and developer fleecing cheap-skates at Hyperion!

P.S. I am enjoying Wings! Remastered on my Windows Bootcamp partition despite it only supporting game pads rather than my analogue joystick

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

@AP

Quote:

But let's be honest: Even if there would be a serial-killer app you wouldn't buy an AmigaOS4-system.

... I'd propbably have more fun having a go on a modern version of Irseesoft's TurboPrint Linux version than I would messing around with Blender and Hollywood on the AmigaOS side! Because Irseesoft/ZEDOnet are not coming back are they? Nor are Grasshopper LLC for PageStream nor are Electronic Arts for Deluxe Paint and nor are Scala!

Hang on a minute I forgot about Spencer!!!!
... where can i sign away my £500+

Last edited by BigD on 30-Apr-2021 at 02:44 PM.

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

@Thread

... not that it looks like the modern iterations have any modern version of Graphics Publisher which was awesome and ahead of its time in terms of functionality of printing graphics and posters. I still get lumbered with PowerPoint on the PC to attempt to replicate its features for poster printing and I still find Graphics Publisher far better than anything I've found on the PC for multi-page poster printing!

Only Amiga!

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

@Thread

Other than the familiar feel and responsiveness of AmigaOS, this is all I am really left pondering regarding the GUI:

Ref: http://www.ghira.mistral.co.uk/amiga/newbie.html

Quote:

Files only show up in workbench if they have icons associated with them, or if "show all files" is turned on. Most files in sys: have no icons. Compare my sys: normally with my sys: with show all files turned on. Since the icon associated with a file has the same name but with .info on the end, any file you want to attach an icon to can't have a name more than 25 characters long. You can make Workbench remember the position of an icon or the size/position of a directory window by using the "snapshot" commands in the Workbench Windows and Icons menus. This won't work on the fake icons used for iconless files in "show all files" mode. Also, Workbench doesn't like icons to be very close together, so if you snapshot very closely spaced icons it may not actually work. You can "leave out" files or directories so that they will appear to be on the desktop.

"Fake" icons?! Now that we have more resources shouldn't AmigaOS generate icons for ALL files to stop this charade or should we just switch to a Finder/File Explorer/Directory Opus style way of doing things?

This is one of the main turn offs to using AmigaOS as a daily driver other than the obsolete web browser, Libre Office not being ready and no OS-wide Universal Clipboard as standard!

Last edited by BigD on 30-Apr-2021 at 03:16 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 30-Apr-2021 at 03:14 PM.

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

@BigD

That's a good point -- why spend the money when there's currently nothing worth buying? Hopefully there will be in the not-too-distant future.

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"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner

@BigD

Quote:

You forget that the A1222 Plus is STILL not available (pre-ordering or 7 year old beta tester launch doesn't count).

Maybe Acube are still taking orders for their next Sam460 production run.

http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news&id=145

@Rob

My understanding is that it's just the motherboard on offer so again there are no machines available just the chance to be a system builder! I have no idea how good the Acube machine is versus the A1222 Plus but I do know that this would not be a cost effective option. I reiterate what are they selling me? Is it purely the chance to mess around with an OS? I could try and buy the Xerox machine that inspired the Apple Mac GUI if that's how I got my kicks! These boards are for people who want to replace their Eyetech AmigaOnes as far as I can see. If ACube had continued to serve the market in the low end and continued to upgrade the Sam machines then maybe A-EON could have focussed on software and high end machines and we wouldn't have had the A1222 Plus launch mess in the first place!

Last edited by BigD on 30-Apr-2021 at 04:31 PM.

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

BigD Quote:

"Fake" icons?! Now that we have more resources shouldn't AmigaOS generate icons for ALL files to stop this charade or should we just switch to a Finder/File Explorer/Directory Opus style way of doing things?

Generating default icons on a Workbench icon snapshot would be a bad idea IMO. More icons would add clutter, slow icon loading and take storage space while generating icons would slow the "snapshot". A "create default icon" in the icon menu is probably a better choice (would work with multiple icons selected and could ignore files which already have icons). Other options could be a requestor asking to create default icons for a "snapshot" with files without icons and adding a Workbench preferences option to create default icons on snapshot.

BigD Quote:

This is one of the main turn offs to using AmigaOS as a daily driver other than the obsolete web browser, Libre Office not being ready and no OS-wide Universal Clipboard as standard!

This is the problem of a niche market closed OS. There is not enough money for development coming from a small niche market and no help from external development.

@matthey

Quote:

This is the problem of a niche market closed OS. There is not enough money for development coming from a small niche market and no help from external development.

Well, there is -some- help. @geen_naam being the prime example lately.

But yes. One can only do "certain things" without access to a closed OS.

#6

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@number6 @matthey

The Enhancer Software doesn’t have any access to the closed source of the OS and that demonstrates that a lot can be developed without it. Sometimes it is better to build new than bolt onto legacy code.

In fact most of the graphics system that OS4 users rely on is now part of the Enhancer Software. This project has been many thousands of man hours of development over the last five years. So I would suggest there has been a lot of development ongoing in this niche community for some time. The Amiga Developer Team have certainly been busy with six public releases of the Enhancer Software in recent years.

This independent project is expanding to increasingly meet the expectations of our customers and fill the development void.

Last edited by amigakit on 30-Apr-2021 at 05:51 PM.

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@amigakit

Point taken and work appreciated. Now get a complete hardware package with software bundle in your warehouse and sell, sell, sell!

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