I think I should throw my few pence worth in.

As far as I see it the MicroA1 is aimed at the embeded market, such as set-top boxes, shop POS/info boxes, tv web surfers. And as such the current specification as above is more than adiquate.

What I feel some people seem to be thinking is that its a small home computer that is to be used in embedded systems, when it is actually the other ways around, an embedded system that can be used by people interested in a cheap *reasonably* powerful computing box.

To sum up I see the AmigaOne as the home computer, and the direction the hardware should take (for home computing). If we all go and buy a MicroA1 instead then we will end up with a similar situation of the A1200, a good computer, but ends up been hacked and bodged into other cases etc. Which is fine for people on this site, but not the general consumer market. (e.g. imagine a graphics company been told, "Yeah it is expandable, but you have to open the case and move the mb to another case,..", they'd reply, "Open The Case!!!".

btw: perhaps we should have some name re-branding. AmigaOne-Small, AmigaOne-Medium, AmigaOne-Large, (XXL?)

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@ C15

Its quite obvious that you'll be able to purchase and run it as a desktop computer. I think Alan has shown he has more interest in puting these into other markets such as those mentioned. I say that because he has stated he is trying to keep the costs down so that it will be suitable for those markets. If he was aiming these directly at the desktop market, he'd have a better GPU and better I/O. He has said the current GPU was put there because of its requirements for power and the rest of the I/O stuff is cheap.

Dont get me wrong, you'll be able to use it as a desktop PC and alan will sell it to you, but the undustrial and embedded markets could eat up this boards a lot faster than any consumer based market like lesure computing. Again, he wont neglect these users, but i think its fair to say he's got his eye on the big money spinners :)

@ jackle ? :)

You'r totaly correct! This was even said at the Melbourne show when it was state that the boards would be fited with 400-450Mhz processes. Now, NOT ALL boards will have 400-450Mhz processes, but these were targeted for industrial applications and maybe even home-entertainment applications (DVD/CD/MP3/hometheater)...

Also, dont forget about the micro-ATX AmigaOne which is 24cmx24cm? So its smaller than the ATX AmigaOne but larger than the mini-ITX AmigaOne (microA1 [not the same as micro-ATX])

The Micro-ATX is a board i believe to be targeted as a workstation/desktop computer with a small form factor. But the microA1 would be a sweet little computer, theres a large market for these type of machines and i hope it find its niche :) Being the only PPC mini-itx board, you'd think it would be a favourite amoung the PPC moding community!

Quote:

Tooo little ram for this day and age, first of all.

(Refers to onboard 256mb)

Have you any idea how much memory is in the PS2 or even Xbox? (Including video mem!)

And a free slot to expand... Where is the problem? Do you do HDTV video editing on your PDA or something that we dont know about?!

Quote:

How cheap are these? Any radeon below 8500 is YESTERDAY's news (avoid). They may even quit making them in 6 months.

And whats the average manufacturing span for graphics cards these days?!

Its often the case that buy the time something gets to the shops its production run is already at an end.

For example- the brand new emac has already been superseeded by the new modle, which is currrently being built. So technically the Emacs that you are buying now are already out of date

Technology moves on so quick - and its the PC's mistake of trying to keep up. I was really dissapointed when I swapped my Athlon XP1700 for a 2200 and new motherboard.. I felt for me as a user experience there was not a lot of difference - Windows still opened windows the same way.

@Bodie_CI5
My understanding was, Alan decided to bring the microA1 to market primarily for the embedded/industrial markets, hence the (relatively) low specs. When the information was presented to the A1dev list to inform them of ongoing development, this was mistakenly put on the WWW. However, one side effect of this mistake was the overwhelming response from desktop users expressing a desire for the microA1 as a home/desktop machine.

In response to this, Eyetech are looking to modify the design to include those features required by the average home/desktop user, features which may or maynot be required by some or all of the embedded/industrial clients. As such the daughterboard approach satisfies the criteria.

In short, the original concept was not for a home/desktop machine, but now it is Thats my understanding anyway.


As to the custom connector, I don't think Alan meant a custom one as in "a connector designed for us specifically" such as the expandsion port on the A1200 (which were next to impossible to get hold of as I needed one for my Uni project and in the end had to change at the last minute), but custom as in "a connector used for a custom application" ie. the daughterboard expansion as apposed to a connector used for a known application, such as a parallel port

Hi Benji,


I bought a GeForce 4 Ti4600 w 128 Megs AGP*4 for $615 + 14% tax in August 2002.

Now, first, I can't find the 4600 listed.

Leadtek FX5200 (It's a 5000 series, so I guess it's faster) AGP*8, is $84 WITH 64 megs of ram.
$84 + tax = 96.18 Can. = $73.67 U.S.



Now for ATI:
Power-Colour Radeon 7000 with 64 megs
$50 + tax = 57.25 = 43.84 U.S.

Sapphire Radeon 9200 SE with 128 megs!!, AGP *8
$75 + tax = 85.72 = 65.65 U.S.

Move to AGP*8 (well, that doesn't help, I know), but 64 EXTRA megs of ram AND higher performance AND texture and lighting and whatever else directx 9 has over 8, for only $22 @ retail, which is LOWER at wholesale AND in volume.

But what do I know?

Quote:

an old 486 with just 16M of RAM will run a 2.2 kernel on text mode just fine

text mode

with AmigaOS you can run a GUI with the same CPU power. That's why it is more powerful than Linux...

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Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

Athiest:
Quote:

But what do I know?

A little. Which is why your dangerous!

Basically your comparing apples & oranges. You're expecting this to be a gamers machine. It isn't. It's primary focus is embedded business markets.

Amiga people wanting to use it in a desktop machine are just using it to piggy-backing the economies-of-scale that'll bring it's price down. That's why people are asking for some expansion possibilities - and Alan seems to be doing his best to give it to you.

But the basic board WILL NOT be a hot gaming rig. It would ruin the whole plan.

You get this yet?

Hi Martyn,

I'm too ambitious, I get it now.

BTW, I think I first saw SIMMs in 1990, so, probably they were just appearing in SE Asia in 1989. BUT Commodore SHOULD HAVE KNOWN what was around the corner.

And, I'm SURE that the techs knew it, but the boardroom guys wanted to rip off the customers, by NOT helping them. How many ram cards were made? Hardly any, and they cost alot, because not many were made, and they didn't even work properly sometimes. (Not because they were broken, but because they were mis-designed.)

Quote:

Move to AGP*8 (well, that doesn't help, I know), but 64 EXTRA megs of ram AND higher performance AND texture and lighting and whatever else directx 9 has over 8, for only $22 @ retail, which is LOWER at wholesale AND in volume.

the 9200SE chipset is a directx 8.1 card, not a 9.x card. It is directx 9 compatible, but but only fully supports directx 8.1

The 9200se is really hindered by it's 64-bit memory bus (same width as the 7000). It's got newer shader technology, and only slightly higher clock-speeds, but it doesn't look like it's really more powerful than the 7000 according to its specs.

Oh yeah, and the 9200se puts out 1.2 gigatexels/second

the 7000 puts out 1.6

You can't compare the low end card of today to middle/high end cards of yesterday, they're different beasts.

Quote:

BTW, I think I first saw SIMMs in 1990, so, probably they were just appearing in SE Asia in 1989. BUT Commodore SHOULD HAVE KNOWN what was around the corner.

Ummm...what the heck are you talking about???

the 30-pin SIMM existed through much of the late eighties, it was EXTREMELY expensive and you had to have FOUR of them for it to work if you had a 4-byte processor(which we do)

When SIMMS started becoming a less expensive option, Commodore put 72-pin SIMM slots on the A4000.

RAM boards were primarily expensive because RAM was expensive, RAM boards didn't sell well because they weren't necessary for most things (although the 512k expansion on the 500 did pretty much become a necessity, and commodore started packaging it with 1 MB onboard (the A500+)) and Commodore had RAM cards for the 2000 and the 3000 where they might be needed.

in 1990 an 80ns 1-meg 30-pin SIMM cost $59.00(remember you needed four of them)

It was quite common to use DIPS(and other types of RAM) instead of SIMMS because it was (relatively) inexpensive to implement, plus commodore didn't have to spend more money implementing a new memory interface.

Quote:

Wain wrote: Ummm...what the heck are you talking about??? the 30-pin SIMM existed through much of the late eighties, it was EXTREMELY expensive and you had to have FOUR of them for it to work if you had a 4-byte processor(which we do)

Well, rather than going into extensive debate over fuzzy memory on my part, I accepted that it wasn't quite available then, but I really thought it was out even when they designed the A500.


In 1990 I bought a GVP Impact Series II SCSI controller, and put 8 megs (it could take 2 4 meg SIMMs or 8 1 meg, have to look inside to see which I got) on it in my A2000.

Best decision I ever made.

$70 per meg * 8 = $560 and $300 for the card. (It was new.)
Canadian funds.

I wish I had been able to buy an accelerator, with 128 or 192 megs. Was never in a position to spend that much for one. Also, the accelerators were always more than an entire 486 or 586 system, with monitor. Hard to stomach.


Amiga! Pioneer! ....and success!

@ Vader

I think you've said it best. If you want the MicroA1 for the desktop, you'll prolly want this daughter board he's talking about because the original design is speced low for other markets!

I still think his main market is embedded/industrial however

I still think the board should be called the MiniA1 just to avoid confusion with MicroATX, which the board isn't.

I want some decent hi-res (NOT 640x480, doesn't anyone who goes to these things have a decent digital camera) images of the board when it is shown off at bath.

Anyway, when will there be a nano itx A1! :) (12cm by 12cm)

I don't understand all the fuss over the ram. Yes, 256meg of RAM will be soldered on, however, you will be able to expand upto 1gig with the so-dimm slot!!!!!!! BTW, 256meg should be more than enough to get people started. Heck, I can run linux and osx on the same desktop with that ram on my A1.